The Kevin Kavanagh Gallery offered up an interesting departure from its usual programming with the exhibition was du brauchst ('what you need'), a concise group exhibi tion featuring five young German artists. The exhibition did not display any particular curatorial construct, but instead contained each artist's individual work and practice as a standalone and yet mutual occupation of the gallery. What each artist did share was an inten sive year of "art and art perception" in New York, sponsored by a German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) grant in 2003/ 2004. Although there was nothing specifically new about the type of works in this exhibition, it did show an interesting level of experimentation by each artist in forms and media that are familiar in contemporary visual culture.

With perhaps more than a nodding reference to Glasgow based Clara Ursitti, performance artist Stefanie Trojan greeted all visitors to the private view by sniffing their armpit and reporting to them on her reaction to the smell with a short pithy comment. A significant number of artists have looked to explore and produce works that go beyond the visual. Ursitti in particular has explored the olfactory sense in a study of the "animalistic side of human nature, and what is considered taboo or uncivilized." Trojan's performance added to this and in doing so challenged the discomfort and invasion of personal space as she sought to identify and negotiate people's personal signatures. Also dealing with perceptions, and in this case making an interesting reference to Ceal Floyer's Light switch, Ulrich Vogl's Der letzte macht das Licht aus ('the last person may turn off the light') brought it a stage further. Rather than a projection, Vogl realized the work in a permanent-marker wall drawing, presenting a faux light switch that continued with an electrical wire across the ceiling and down to an ornate chandelier drawing on the opposite wall. In the work, Vogl questions the relationship that exists between the literal, material and representational presence of things. The very literal notion of the chandelier as a romantic symbol created a metaphorical play on the idea of the work as being German romantic. By its very nature wall drawing is both impermanent and provisional. However, an additional installation by Vogl offered an interesting foil to the delicacy of his wall drawing. Using industrial wallmounted halogen light fixtures as light boxes, Vogl compared and contrasted method of representation in a way that was both obvious and uncontrived. This also added an amusing notion of the image of the chandelier lit and yet not providing light. Continuing with the lighting theme, Notburga Karl provided a site-specific, oversized, architectonic construction of florescent lights suspended from the walls and ceiling in the corner of the gallery. Entitled Blindgaenger ('dud'), the work resembled a confused confluence of viral strands, and whilst there may be too obvious a reference in terms of material to Dan Flavin, the work appeared to be more redolent of the aesthetic in the works of Martin Boyce and Björn Dahlem. The subtle difference lies at the core of Karl's work. Instead of causing the audience to address the space through a negotiation of light sculptures, Karl does not challenge her audience to negotiate space or any perceived path in the gallery. Instead, the title may provide a clear and playful response to the illusory simplicity of the work and undoes the iconographical meaning behind the materials she works with.

Ulrich Vogl, Der letzte macht das Licht aus (The last person may turn off the light), 2005, wall drawing, permanent marker, wall; courtesy Kevin Kavanagh Gallery

Also working with light, this time in the form of attempted communications, Klara Hobza's Morse code communication provided video documentation of her performance in the clerestory of the Sculpture Center in Long Island City, NYC. Rather than the definite message systems of artists such as Cerith Wyn Evans, Hobza played with the idea of Samuel Morse (creator of Morse code) as an artist. By placing over a hundred light bulbs in the clerestory, she turned the building into a Morse code apparatus. Hobza's video, shown in this exhibition, documents her desperate attempt, over two days, to communicate with the neighbourhood and people in the passing trains and cars in Morse code.

In a similar manner, Stefanie Trojan provided a second work for the exhibition. On a monitor buried under Notburga Karl's lighting installation, Trojan continued to question human habits and social patterns, and direct interaction with the observer in a video document of the work Lächeln/ smile. In this video Trojan captured her tactics of confrontation and objectification in a simple yet complicated situation. By challenging people, once again with a physical intervention that took place in a German city, Trojan straightforwardly and bodily reshaped peoples' mouths into the shape of a smile.

The videos on display in the gallery occupy the space of documentation as art. Both Hobza and Trojan reincarnate the trauma of their physical performances through video and photography as a kind of fixed account. It then becomes one of the roles of the viewer to actualize the participatory aspect of the performance, and confirm or deny the underlying energies and notions of the moment. For Trojan the simplicity of the record worked in manifesting at least some of the energies of the moment of the performance. This was not the case with Hobza's work. The brevity of the editing process failed to bring across the scale of the project, and unfortunately appeared to have credits that were the same length as the film piece.

Finally, Thomas Trinkl's Lange Anna (Long Anna) was a direct challenge to the physical space of the gallery. Lange Anna, a large rock pillar in Helgoland in Germany and symbol of that region, was recreated and given central position. All of the works in the exhibition surrounded this pillar of painted carbonate, paper and wire construction. Its apparent metallic solidity appeared at once to echo the monumental late nineteenth century sculptures of aggrandizement, and yet the nature of the materials used created a real distortion of any notions of these symbols, and by its very physical presence it challenged the audience to negociate a path around its apparent solidity

Was du brauchst was most definitely a welcome addition to the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery programme. The exhibition provided both a psychological and material space for reflection and adjusted oour ideas of the potential for this gallery space

Noel Kelly is Deputy Director and Curator for Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin, and a Senior Partner with the Art Projects Network.

Dublin: Was du brauchst, Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, August 2005