“When art,” as Adorno noted in his Aesthetic Theory, “reflects the social coercion in which it is harnessed and by doing so opens up a perspective on reconciliation, it is spiritualization. ”This, I feel, is where the utopian potential of refraction house might be found.For if Kuball’s concept kept its promise in situ, it could possible provide answers to the question whether and to what extent light that is devoid of representation, and that is as bright as it is unspecific, may illuminate inside our consciousness that “perspective on reconciliation” cited by Adorno, even if it was only for a while, or else to the question whether and, if so, to what extent the aesthetics of the immaterial is capable of countermanding the ubiquitous strategies of oblivion.
Armin Zweite
Excerpt from:Stadt Pulheim (ed.), Mischa Kuball. refraction house, exhibition catalogue, Düsseldorf 1994.