Yesterday i headed to the Georg Kolbe Museum to see an exhibition The Power of the Tangible – Sculpture Today!
Extract from the press release (PDF): �The genre of sculpture has undergone an enormous conceptual expansion over the past 50 years,� exclaimed Dr. Marc Wellmann, curator of the exhibit. �Since the 1960s it includes all artistic formations, settings and actions occuring within 3D space. This includes land art, environment, performance, space installation, video art, or social intervention, even architecture like Frank Gehry’s recent Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. In the midst of these extreme expansions of the category sculpture, there yet remains a firm, intrinsic core that hasn’t lost its fascination, even though it has been shoved into the background by the art business in past years. But suddenly people are talking about the ‘sculpture renaissance’.�
The choice of works was determined by the following criteria: inner autonomy, insularity and durability. Excluded were art terms that were installative, context-based, or ephemeral.
Most of the artists selected for the exhibition are starting to find their place in the art market without being yet regarded as “established”. They were born between the mid-70s and the mid-60s. Most of them are residents of Berlin, a fact that reflects the ongoing influx of artists to Berlin.
The poster of the exhibition, plastered all over Berlin, was quite intriging (see image on top): it is starring a detail of a taxidermy horror tableau created by Iris Schieferstein. In her pieces, the artist (who so far managed to escape the radar i use to detect taxidermy art works) joins fragments of dead animals together to shape new creatures. The composition is impeccably crafted: the skins have been treated with great care and i liked the fact that the stiches that attach one bit to another are not hidden. A bit too ghoulish for my taste, though.
I didn’t go crazy for most of the works i saw there and i’m not an expert in sculpture so i can’t say whether the exhibition lived up to its promise of presenting an interesting enough panorama of contemporary sculpture but have a look at the pictures of the exhibition and make your own judgement. Two favourite from the show:
Stefanie Bühler‘s Urwald (Virgin Forest). That’s an odd piece but one i wouldn’t mind having home. Urwald is a fragment of forest hanging on the wall, it’s green, shiny, dense and perfectly mysterious like a virgin forest but it’s made of artificial materials like polyurethane and styrofoam.
Farm animals are cute and i like plush toys but that’s not enough to explain my enthousiasm for Katharina Moessinger‘s cow, sheep and goat. Actually they are not really plush toys, they are too big and made of animal skin. Thrown together on the floor, they looked like a bit distressed and i kind of felt the urge to lie on them for a quick nap. They looked so cozy.
The exhibition runs until May 25.
A few images on flickr.