< overview 2007
 
 
   
 

Alles im gruenen Bereich

[german expression for "everything alright" using the term "green"]

October 12 - November11, 2007
   
   
opening: Friday, October 12, 8 pm
   
     
 

Participating artists:

Harald Finke, Hamburg
Jennifer Halfpap, Hamburg
Karin Hilmar, Gelsenkirchen
Astrid Korntheuer, Offenbach
Katerina Kuznetcowa, Muenster
Ilka Meyer, Berlin
Stephan Reusse, Cologne
Stephanie Senge, Munich
Sandra Voets, Duesseldorf

  
   
   
 
  opening, October 12
     
  The exhibition is concerned to show aristic positions with a relation to "nature" in the broadest sense.

The term "nature" (lat.: natura, from nasci "to emerge, being born") is used in different, even contradictory meanings depending on the society or the specific part of a society.
In the western world, "nature" is understood to be that part of the world not created by man. One differentiates between animate (i.e. plants and animals) and unanimate nature (i.e. rocks, fluids, gases). "Nature" is used as counter term for "culture".

The exhibition - by visual media - broaches the issue of the fact that nature has gradually become a "product", manipulated by man to an extent that it has completely lost its "actual nature". It is nowadays considered selfunderstood that "natural" phenomena can be artificially generated and that artificial phenomena appear to be "natural".

The fact that the boundaries between nature and culture are getting blurred is well accepted .

The artists selected for the exhibition analyze the realtionship between man and nature from different points of view. They study the melting points of nature and culture, of natural and artificial phenomena.

  
 
 
 
 

 
 
  Harald Finke  
 
 
   
 
 

The apparently unimaginable idea of communicating with plants in realized in an artistic context by "plant scripture" and and "parallel drawing". In a scenario where artist and observer are at first beyond any theoretical system of meaning, the project "plant scripture - parallel drawing" creates a forum where plants and humans can get involved in different ways. The reactions of plants are results of the input of the humans developed on their side of the communication system.

  
 
     
  Jennifer Halfpap  
 
   
   
 

 
 

Plants - what does that actually mean? Food, dispensers of shadow, construction material, decoration, crucial source of oxygen?
Since I was a child I was interested in these phenomena. It was during my university studies in biology that I could finally investigate these topics - and I was intrigued not only by the composition of palnts and the way of herbal life but also of the range of colours and forms. My studies of fine arts gave me the possibility to see biology from an artistic point of view and to try to work out a synthesis of art and nature.
Each plant has hiddden roots to anchor it in the ground and to provide the absorption of nutrition. At the same time, the roots display also an aesthtical attractiveness for which I want to create an appropriate environment.

  
 

 
     
Karin Hilmar  
 
 
 
   
  from the series "Molluske"
In my work I study the zone where nature and art overlap. By inventing shapes that could possibly be natural, sculptures are created whose character becomes again completely artificial through the materials they are made from (silicon and polyester).
I am not concerned with imaging natural phenomena but with the search for a formal language that is related to natural shapes that are put into a new context trough alienation. [...]
   
     
Astrid Korntheuer  
 
 
 
 
  from the series "Paintings"
The idyll is fatal for the observer. Not only can any ground for safe footing hardly be seen. The twigs and branches form dense, impenetrable curtains. One expects an idyll, yet there's no passing through. Lovely nature becomes a solid wall, the more repellent, the more one gets engaged with Astrid Korntheuer's play with light and shadow - the peaks of light and the depths of shadows reproduced in an impressive manner by her injet prints. With the orchestral composition of hues and contrasts she creates an overall impression that points towards universality and focuses on our subtle reception of these scenarios. It feels like the banishment from paradise. [after Thomas Poller, April 2006]
   
     
Katerina Kuznetcowa
  
 
 
 
 

 
In her installations, Katerina Kuznetcowa investigates the interplay of object, space and time. She focuses on processes: She frequently introduces elements in her work that change with time and display an independent development. It is her intention to observe, analyize and partially control these processes of change. Her works are closely realted to the architectural, climate, sociological and cultural characteristics of the sites where they are set up. [Anne Schloen, from "Giardino"]
   
     
  Ilka Meyer  
 
   
   
 

 
 

WASH BASIN, 2004
Lichen are a symbiose of mushrooms and algae. The type I am using has a skin on its base, which firmly fixes onto walls. Wet lichen swell and loosens up from the surface. When it dries again, it shrinks and clings to even very smooth ceramics. When it is wet, the lichen is very green. Turning dry, it becomes orange. The clean, white and very smooth surface of the toilet washbasin is being occupied by a substance that grows naturally in wet surroundings.

  
 

 
     
Stephan Reusse  
 
 
 
   
 
My work is concerned with perception and memory.
The installation presented in the exhibition focuses on mice controlling the buildings at night time.
A laser is projecting traces of movement and silhouttes of the animals onto the walls.
The forms stem from an analysis of infrared video recordings of mice and are reproduced in a schematical way. The resulting patterns of movement and forms are a combination of real film recordings and animation and are characterized by their naturally hectical, anxious nature.
By the moment we see them they have already become part of our memory which - based on our experience - creates the image of a mouse which is actually not there. Having seen nothing but some traces of lines, their symbolicalness reproduces a reality only existing in our memory.
   
     
Stephanie Senge  
 
 
 
 
  left: from the series "Diary"
In the period from August to December 2005 I studied the Japanese art of of flower arrangement of Ikenobo Ikebana, Freestyle and Shoka. The Japanes flowers chosen by my teacher represented the actual seasons. In my studio I reconstructed the Ikebana I had just learned about adding objects of my momentary everyday life.
.
right: from the series "100 Yen Shop Ikebana"
   
     
Sandra Voets
  
 
 
 
 

  The room provides space for collecting and storing plants and organics from the lowlands of the Seege. Over one year the lowlands are periodically scanned for flowers, plants and other organic materials that are stored in a multideck cabinet. Repeated freezing and defreezing creates a specific structure completely differing from that of organic material that was freezed only once. The project is not concerned with building up a biological collection in which each plant is preserved to keep its detailed shape; the process of collecting, freezing, defreezing and re-freezing is open in result. Being built up over the time of twelve months the collection documents one whole year. [Westwendischer Kunstverein e. V. on the occasion of the installation „Des Grafen Wunderkammer" by Sandra Voets]
   
   
 

invitation card ©:
pictures and texts ©: the artists unless noted elsewise; English by Rona Rangsch except text by Ilka Meyer
Organisation: Ulrike Stockhaus | Elly Valk-Verheijen | Ulrich Weber

supported by: Sparkasse Dortmund, Department for Culture of the City of Dortmund, Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der Westfälischen Kulturabeit (GWK), Brinkhoffs Brewery