René Lück is an archaeo-
logist of collective memory. His installations expose the hidden
images and symbols that have been concealed in the deepest layers
of our social memory, bringing them to the centre of our attention.
In such work, Lück addresses chiefly objects and depictions
which are regarded as symbols of political self-determination and
have thus developed into icons of the collective memory.
The mass media, in particular television, play a central role in
this reflection. Lück selects striking events from media reporting
and its store of images and transforms them into objects or logos.
Model-like reproductions of the hut camps occupied by opponents
of nuclear power, of the state emblem of Hessen ‘disparaged’
by those objecting the West Runway, or of the disputed oil platform
Brent Spar are employed to reconstruct historical constellations.
Reduced to the essentials rather than true to detail, these objects
reflect the fragmentary, subjective character of personal recollection,
although the artist certainly aims to enlighten us. René
Lück’s works, therefore, also convey “the spirit
of departure and a desire to make things happen; fleeting utopias
and political opposition” (Michael Dethleffsen).
Studio 3, 12th - 28th August 2005, Wednesday
- Sunday, 2- 7 pm, Opening: Thursday, 11th August 2005, 7 pm
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Kristina Bræin makes use of
the formal language of minimalist abstraction for her site-specific
inter-
ventions in the exhibition space. The starting point and most
important element of her artistic practice is always a dialogue
with the available space.
She employs unspecta-
cular, everyday objects and materials for her work, and the results
as such cannot immediately be recognised as 'art objects'. This
means that the sculptural arrangements which she assembles may
almost merge into the exhibition space. At the same time, they
visualise an additional dimension already inherent in the space;
one that would have remained concealed without her intervention.
The resulting ensembles are improvisations or temporary statements,
which emerge spontaneously through the artist’s continuing
dialogue with the given setting.
Bræin’s works are minimalist, yet they exercise a
considerable sensual attraction. The ensembles - which often oscillate
between sculpture and
drawing - represent a commentary on, and a reversal of the dominant
logic of the given space.
As in all her works, in her most recent installations the artist
is primarily concerned with the work’s process of emergence
and with the element of improvisation – a working method
which is reminiscent of Kristina Bræin’s other artistic
discipline: music.
Studio 2, 12th - 28th August
2005, Wednesday - Sunday, 2- 7 pm, Opening: Thursday, 11th August
2005, 7 pm |
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This year Künstler-
haus Bethanien is presenting SEO as the first prize-winner of the
newly created Falkenrot-Prize.
In future, this prize for painting - ini-
tiated by the Dutch collectors Arie and Astrid de Knecht - is to
be awarded to artists from home and abroad whose work promises to
shape future developments in contemporary art.
The works by this year’s prize-winner combine elements of
her original Asian culture and present chosen home in Europe. To
create her collages, she tears up pieces of paper and sticks these
over each other in layers, then applying paint before adding more
layers and finally painting over them once again.
The surface layers and those still partially visible beneath them
give rise to an unusual painterly structure, to which the hand-made
paper sent to the artist from her home country in Korea also contributes.
It is not a matter, first and foremost, of reproducing the motifs
realistically, but of discovering the ‘essence’ within
the motif; an essence then rendered in painting.
Studio 1, 12th - 28th August 2005, Wednesday
- Sunday, 2- 7 pm, Opening: Thursday, 11th August 2005, 7 pm
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