Stephan Reusse    Köln Juli 2026

The Empty Space

Perhaps every work begins there.

Not with an idea.

Not with an image.

But with a spot where something is missing.

Only later do I notice that what is missing changes my perspective.

A painting is taken down from the wall.

The wall remains.

I look at it.

At first, I see nothing.

Perhaps because I’m looking for an image.

It is only the thermographic gaze that changes something.

Not the wall.

My gaze.

Suddenly, a subtle difference appears there.

Barely more than a hint.

It is not drawn.

Not painted.

Not photographed.

It is simply there.

For a brief moment.

Then it, too, disappears.

I could say that thermography reveals what remains hidden from the eye.

For a long time, that’s exactly what I would have said.

Today, that statement no longer suffices for me.

Because it’s not just a temperature that becomes visible.

What becomes visible is a hesitation.

Something is gone.

And yet not entirely.

Perhaps that is precisely where my interest begins.

Not with the warmth.

Not with its measurability.

But in this hesitation.

As I look at these paintings, I notice something strange.

I begin to remember.

Not intentionally.

The memory sets in.

It comes quietly.

Almost as if it had been standing next to the image the whole time.

A name surfaces.

Rothko.

I’m surprised by this.

Not because the images resemble his.

But because I recognize him, even though he isn’t there.

From that moment on, the work changes.

Not the image.

My view of the image.

Until then, I believed that thermography revealed something that could be measured.

Now I wonder if it doesn’t reveal something entirely different.

Not heat.

Memory.

Perhaps we never see with our eyes alone.

Perhaps we see with all the images we have ever seen.

Then every act of seeing would also be an act of remembering.

And every act of remembering a new form of seeing.

I set this thought aside.

Like leaving a stone lying on a path.

Not to explain it.

But to return to it later.

It is not until much later that I encounter Aby Warburg.

Even later, Jan Assmann.

It is a peculiar experience.

It’s not their ideas that lead me to my images.

My images lead me to their ideas.

Perhaps questions follow their own path.

Perhaps they seek out their own conversation partners.

Since then, I’ve also seen the wall differently.

It isn’t empty.

It is silent.

Perhaps there’s a difference there.

Emptiness signifies a lack.

Silence signifies a possibility.

The wall does not wait.

It holds nothing fast.

And yet something happens.

For a brief moment.

So brief that it’s easy to overlook it.

I am now less concerned with what the thermography shows.

I am concerned with what it triggers.

It changes the direction of seeing.

Not outward.

Inward.

Perhaps that is where the image first emerges.

Not on the wall.

Not in the camera.

Between what I see,

and what

resonates within me.

…

I realize that I keep returning to the same place.

To the empty wall.

To the moment that follows.

Perhaps every work begins there.

In a place

that is not empty,

but open.

For a long time, I didn’t have a word for it.

Today, I sometimes think of the word

“trace.”

Not as a concept.

Rather as something

that resists disappearing.

Perhaps images don’t leave their most important trace on the wall.

But rather in the way

they change our gaze.

Rothk.0  #13.4, thermogr. Aufnahme, 2023