The toxic building – How Jan Glisman turned the deconstruction of the Deutsche Welle towers into a multimedia art project
Sunday, 03 July 2022
by elke
All Jan Glisman really wanted to do was to "just" document a spectacular event in Cologne: The demolition of all three parts of the 138-metre-high Deutsche Welle broadcasting tower, the third-highest building in the city. The funding had been approved, the plans worked out, but then - everything turned out quite differently. The risk to the broadcasting operations of Deutschlandfunk, which is connected by a common foundation slab, and the spread of asbestos fibres feared by residents in the neighbourhood had prevented the blasting. “Blasting” therefore became "deconstruction". A process that was to extend over a total of five years and challenged Glisman to document precisely that period. Huge numbers of photos, video material and drawings were initially created without any concrete idea of what was to happen with them ...
- Published in Architecture, Art projects, Exhibition reviews, Graphics, Mulitimedia, Photography, Video Art
Richard Siegal – Focus on the choreographer, Episode 4 of the series “Behind the Arts”
Sunday, 12 June 2022
by elke
The imminent premiere of XERROX Vol. 2, a ballet for the music of the same name by Alva Noto, choreographed by Richard Siegal and performed by his company BALLET OF DIFFERENCE, was also a premiere for me. The attendance of the rehearsal and the subsequent conversation with Richard Siegal challenged me to get involved in contemporary ballet. To give you a heads up: I was immediately bowled over ...
- Published in Behind the Arts, Dance, Events, Mulitimedia, Performance
Nathalie Vanheule – The beauty of vulnerability
Sunday, 16 January 2022
by elke
How can poetic art actually be explained? Strangely enough, not by using words. It comes through the senses. As so happened when l looked at the Instagram photos of Nathalie Vanheule. Even a short glance had sufficed to directly sense the emotional power of her works which move between performance, sculptures and video installations. Trying to discover this phenomenon, I am eagerly heading to Kortrijk in Belgium to meet the artist personally ...
- Published in Installation Art, Mulitimedia, Performance, Studio visits, Video Art
Ardan Özmenoglu – All wonderful
Sunday, 24 October 2021
by tom-admin
It is indeed absolutely wonderful to stand in front of Ardan Özmenoglu's front door in Istanbul. Surreal is perhaps even better. Just three weeks ago, she spontaneously invited me to her studio at her exhibition opening with the above title at Galerie Anna Laudel in Düsseldorf. And now I'm here. Am I even right? In a mix of English and sign language, I had communicated with the taxi driver and now hope that he hasn’t left me somewhere in the middle of nowhere. The bell sign "hello I'm art" is already reassuring. Address seems to be correct. But unfortunately, no one opens. The tension rises again ...
- Published in Graphics, Installation Art, Mulitimedia, Painting, Studio visits
Alex Grein – Ephemeral: photographically “exposed“
Sunday, 01 August 2021
by tom-admin
Cell phone holders, blocks of ice, dissecting tables, frozen matter in a freezer, viscous matter in canisters, photographs in deformed frames, and butterflies on video screens. Although I haven’t seen them, the mere listing makes me more than curious about this exhibition. How can we connect all of these, such different works? A first idea is conveyed in the exhibition title „d a u e r“ ...
- Published in Digital Art, Exhibition reviews, Photography, Installation Art, Mulitimedia, Newcomer, Photography, Video Art
Banz & Bowinkel – Digital shadows of real images
Sunday, 23 May 2021
by tom-admin
Admittedly, I had successfully managed to sneak by the world of Immersive art without paying attention, until I visited this exhibition. The terminology alone, with its abbreviations, seemed scary to me: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Bots, and now Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) ... Too technical. Too complicated. Or so I thought until I met Giulia Bowinkel and Friedemann Banz – THE artist duo that has been shaping the development of this young art form since its beginnings.
- Published in Digital Art, Exhibition reviews, Installation Art, Mulitimedia, Newcomer, Video Art
Louisa Clement – Can physical emptiness be filled digitally?
Sunday, 17 January 2021
by tom-admin
Bonn. Can physical emptiness be filled digitally? How do the interpersonal relationships change in the era of digitalisation? These are questions that occupy Louisa Clement’s mind and have been occupying mine ever since I visited her. I increasingly understand the power of digital communication which currently appears to help us to mainly maintain the contact with the outside world – while the pandemic is raging. “Your Likes made my day “, so popular now, is assuming a worrying underton …
- Published in Digital Art, Installation Art, Mulitimedia, Newcomer, Photography, Studio visits, Video Art
Sophia Süßmilch – Pure Artist Talk
Sunday, 09 August 2020
by tom-admin
It only needs a fraction of a second and I’m captivated. What a weird photo! The adjoining, relevant, short and snappy profile in the June edition ofart Magazinunder the promising headline “Die Superheldin”1 clinched it for me. Sophia Süßmilch fascinates me immediately. The same day I write her a mail and enquire about a visit to her studio. She promptly replies. It was to become a special encounter ...
- Published in Installation Art, Mulitimedia, Newcomer, Painting, Performance, Photography, Studio visits, Video Art