Dynamic. Movement in the Collection
Wave patterns, mirror surfaces, flickering light, and dancing bodies! In this selection from the Siegfried and Jutta Weishaupt collection, kunsthalle weishaupt presents works that make movement apparent in many different ways. From dynamic brushwork to mechanically moving reliefs – instead of still images visitors are here offered impulses, vibrancy, and dynamism.
These works – drawings, photography, and video art – illustrate how a fixed two-dimensional image can be made dynamic. In Jürgen Klauke‘s photographs, motifs are blurred by using long exposure times. The resulting fuzziness shows how a photographic moment can be extended in time, and the ghostly traces of light lead to images full of subtle vitality.
Works by American artist Robert Longo, by contrast, use the medium of photography merely as a model. Over many months, he redraws snapshots he has taken or pictures from newspapers in very large naturalistic copies. The artist overcomes the apparent contradiction between a fixed drawing and the impression of movement by selecting motifs based on particularly dramatic situations.
In works of op art, fixed-line formations begin to oscillate before the eyes of the beholders. Interferences lead to flickering effects and it seems as if the two-dimensional surface is moving closer to the viewers. In this exhibition, these confusing formal patterns enter into dialogue with works in experimental painting. English artist Jason Martin, for example, uses a metal comb to direct the thick oil paint he applies to his canvases into movements that are like dances. His works are highly abstract, but nonetheless they are reminiscent of dynamic natural phenomena like gentle wave movements and dancing rays of sunlight.
In kinetic art, static composition is replaced by objects and pictorial elements powered by electric motors. These works impressively show how real mechanical movement found its way into twentieth-century art, sometimes as slow and steady motion and sometimes as a jittery and bumpy ride.
Movement in art also means activating the audience. In particular works by the ZERO group show how movements made by the beholders of a work can lead to variable optical effects. Metallic and shiny mirror reflections and vibrating image surfaces are created by a shift of the viewing perspective. Structures made of nylon threads are turned into rhythmical and dynamic wall installations by a current of air caused by the beholder. Shifts in lighting make a field of nails the scene of dynamic art. Here, movement is the creative principle that dissolves the borders between the work of art and the viewer.
With works by Jürgen Klauke, Julio Le Parc, Robert Longo, Adolf Luther, Heinz Mack, Jason Martin, Jean Tinguely and others.