Hello … My Name is … YOR7

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Looking for traces of use and abuse around Wiesbaden’s former courthouse, I spotted these pictures painted on metal doors. I found them absolutely gripping, and immediately decided I had to show them to Jörg from Dosenkunst. Then I checked with his blog and found out he had photographed and posted them quite a while ago. So what was the point of photographing them again?

I told my wife I had to show her some photos of graffiti, and upon seeing them she replied: “Are you sure you want to call these graffiti? They are art!” So here’s another interpretation of art…

Happy Place: Museum (Metz)

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Man is only himself when at play, claims Friedrich Schiller in his Letters upon the Aesthetic Education of Man. For me, museums are not just places that deal with aesthetics but also adult playgrounds – especially when I am allowed to use my camera: Museums encourage taking the risk of looking at things differently; the whole activity feels like getting the head massaged. | A contribution for the Weekly Photo Challenge: Happy Place.

Understanding Art. ZERO

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The picture – Organische Struktur (1962) by German artist Günther Uecker – hangs on a wall like a painting. Yet it challenges the notion of a picture plane. While the indistinct ‘background’ lacks any classic perspective, the nails will inevitably be seen in perspective by a spectator.

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The picture changes as you walk past; note the varying balance of dark parts and bright parts, caused by light and shadow on the otherwise monochrome nails. Unlike in Renaissance painting, there is no privileged point of view from which – and from which only – the perspective will work.

There is  great openness in this kind of art, inviting some activity from the spectator. The right perspective is the one you choose. The same seems to apply to Vibration (1961) by Jesús Rafael Soto (below). Because of the narrow stripes in the background, the wires seem to vibrate as you walk around – an effect the still camera captures as jagged lines.

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I had no idea when to post this (I made the photographs on May 24), but then Christina aka Paleica came up with a challenge that’s right down my alley: Kunst / Art. Thank you, Christina!

Posted in Art

Project 03 | Understanding Art. KIT – TAU (2)

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As I moved around the art, the art moved me..

Kunst im Tunnel (KIT) is one of Düsseldorf’s most original museum spaces. It is literally part of a tunnel, a little odd-shaped piece of concrete left over above the actual tube and beyond a beautiful riverside walk along the Rhine river. It is very low at one end and very narrow at the other, and between the two ends, it is shaped like banana, or rather a banana box. The place is worth a visit in itself.

Tau, on he other hand, is the German word for both dew and a rope. It was chosen as a title for the collective exhibition of a class of Düsseldorf’s academy of the fine arts. The leaflet explains that no single work is ascribed to a single artist, thus drawing a parallel to both dew and a rope which are both constituted by smaller elements (the droplets, the single threads).

As a way of exhibiting art, this seems to be halfway between the art school exhibition I showed before and the museum I plan to take you to in some upcoming posts.

Let me just add that being there with a permit to photograph, I felt like a kid in a candy store.

Project 03 | Understanding Art. KIT – TAU (1)

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aua16-hAfter visiting a students’ exhibition at an Art School (Kunsthochschule) in Mainz, KIT – TAU took us to a public exhibition space in Düsseldorf. The works shown in KIT were made by art students from Katharina Grosse’s class. Grosse will have her work exhibited here in Wiesbaden in the late summer. The art world is a small world.

Museum Wiesbaden will be featured soon, so that this series proceeds from the atelier to a formal museum in three steps.

The general idea of this series: “Challenge yourself, not by attempting to capture the artwork itself, but your experience of it” (Johan Idema, How To Visit a Museum. Tips for a Truly Awarding Visit. Amsterdam: BIS, 2014). This project is, indeed, intended as a challenge. So you are very welcome to participate. Details can be found here. | This is also my response to the Weekly Photo Challenge: Orange.

Posted in Art

Project 03 | Understanding Art. Kunsthochschule (1)

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Seeing artworks in the ateliers they were made in is fascinating. The air at the Kunsthochschule (Art School) is heavy with paint and solvents; paint buckets, brushes and easels have been stowed away in a hurry; students seem to be compensating for last night’s lack of sleep rather than guarding the art and asking questions. Some smile (encouragingly?) when the see me making pictures.

Visiting the academy and getting a glimpse of the actual work environment is quite different from going to a museum. But does it help in understanding the works?

If you study hermeneutics (the art and science of understanding), you’ll find the idea that to understand the artist, you need to understand the circumstances under which he or she worked. While I doubt I always want to understand the artist – understanding art is tough enough – visiting an atelier lets me see the works in a ‘fresher’ or even ‘hotter’ state than any other environment (hypothesis: museums are for cooling art down to a more palpable temperature). And since understanding a work of art might as well be non-verbal, digesting it at its freshest might indeed help us understand.

Not to mention the fact that the physical access to the works seems to be way more direct. No one tells you to step back; you can wear your oldest trousers and roll on the floor to get the best point of view if you like. If art is a game, here is an invitation to play with it.

Speaking of invitations: This is part of this year’s third project in which you can participate: The idea is to (playfully) understand art through photography; details can be found on this page.

Posted in Art

Project 03 | Understanding Art. Interjection

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Sometimes even the most dubious characters in a mystery novel have a lot to say. In Ben Aaronovitch’s Whispers Underground, an artist speaks his mind: “There’s no point asking what a piece of work means, you know? If we could express it in words, do you think we would have spent all that time bisecting a cow or pickling a shark? Do you think bisecting a cow is somebody’s idea of a fun fucking afternoon? And then to have stupid people come up to you and say, ‘It’s very interesting, but is it art?’ – yes, it’s fucking art. Do you think I’m planning to eat the fecking thing?” (p. 285)

I kind of like the reasoning here: Art can be defined by the use we make of it. And it is hard to talk about. So why not try to understand it non-verbally? That’s what my March/April project is about. You can participate! Details can be found here and on the ‘2015 Projects’ pages.

Project 03 | Understanding Art

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Making pictures helps me understand history and memory as well as architecture or nature or the aesthetics of a movie. In contrast to scientific understanding, I would like to call the insight I find using photographs aesthetic understanding. The goal may well be beyond language.

Now this idea seems to be supported by a rather new book about visiting museums. Among other things, the author suggests we make photos of the works we see: “Taking pictures is also a way of connecting to and participating in the art, as it unleashes our excitement and involvement. Taking a clever picture can lead to more meaningful interaction with art. […] Challenge yourself, not by attempting to capture the artwork itself, but your experience of it.” (Johan Idema, How To Visit a Museum. Tips for a Truly Awarding Visit. Amsterdam: BIS, 2014)

For this month’s project, the challenge is to make clever photos of a work of art, capturing your experience of it. If the museums you visit are too restrictive about photographing the exhibits, try to find an artwork that is displayed in public – I am sure there will be plenty of them once you start looking.
Since the projects I have in mind for this year are not simple, I decided to switch to a bi-monthly rhythm, giving us all more time to come up with ideas (or time to post more pictures).

The pictures in this post were taken at an art school where I happened to visit a students’ exhibition a couple of weeks ago. The works were on display in the studios, giving the exhibition an atmosphere of authenticity and immediacy, making the visitors part of it all.