curated by Petra Reichensperger

Julia Horstmann Crash! Boom! Bang!
&
Susanne M. Winterling Die ums Feuer sind
Featuring works by Endre Aalrust, Gerry Bibby, Arthur Boskamp, Nadira Husain, Janne Lervik and Sean McNanney

Julia Horstmann’s exhibition “Crash!Boom!Bang!” deals with the material glass in architecture, as well as codes in Art Deco. Glass is often utilized to create an impression of transparency and openness. However, glass also forces a distance between viewer and object. The work “Crash!Boom!Bang! / Wall of China, Part 3” occupies the center of the hall. It consists of a triple section free-standing screen with four vertically rotatable internal elements per section. Their reflective safety glass panes draw a visual parallel to storefronts or industrial facades. Horstmann makes use of a mirrored glass that not only reflects light, but also lets light through. As the mirror effect changes with the direction of light, the positions of subject and object, work and viewer are in a state of constant flux. The artist achieves a similar effect in the piece “Between the Walls”. This time, it is a white wall disrupted by blue and red glass inlays, a play on Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Chapel. A slide projection of a woman navigating through a glass industrial park is installed parallel to it. Horstmann painted a column on the front end of the large hall, borrowing its design from a relief seen in the sci-fi film “Blade Runner”, a film that referenced jugendstil aesthetics heavily. The ornamented column stands in contrast to the glass works – at first glance. At second glance, it completes them.

In her work, Susanne Winterling pursues an actualization of the past. Her exhibition “Die ums Feuer sind” (Those Around the Fire) is exemplary of this process. Working with Gerry Bibby, she addresses the historic Lockstedt military camp. Both of them are interested in the poses and masquerades soldiers once adopted in photographs. During her residency at M.1, Winterling came across other objects – especially works or other props left by Arthur Boskamp, such as a quill – which she also integrated into her work. The artist has long been interested in the magnitude of energy that can be felt when people sit and work around a campfire. Pursuing this line of inquiry, she filmed a 16mm piece on location in Hohenlockstedt that will be projected at the opening with a looper. To make the energy that prevailed during filming visible here as well, the artist invited all those who worked on the film to participate with their own work. She took her inspiration from a campfire scene from the film “Wendy and Lucy”, where the campfire is a vehicle for geographical and existential experiences of transit. Winterling takes up these experiences and turns the epitome of community into a group exhibition. Some questions arose during the working process: Is the extension of the work into social context a social sculpture? Am I anything at all without others?

Kindly supported by: Reinhard Schulz / audio.video.elektronik.

At the opening of the 2009 Sculpture and Installation Grant exhibition, the Arthur Boskamp Foundation publications on the 2008 Video Grant awarded to Stefan Panhans / Eske Schlüters will be presented. This year, the grant publications are published by Textem Verlag, Hamburg.