Category: Art

Barfleur, France, 2023

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.

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.

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!

After 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.

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.