The MKdW has selected two artists from its residency programme: they work with very different techniques but are deeply fascinated by an intensive engagement with nature.
The Hamburg-based, German painter Jochen Hein (b. 1960) and the Berlin-based, Argentinian installation artist Miguel Rothschild (b. 1963) use their work to reinvestigate the relationship between humankind and nature. The landscape becomes the defining variable. It’s often impossible to say whether this is a nature from before or after people – all evidence of civilisation is absent, making it difficult to evaluate the actual size of the landscape.
The artists are fascinated by all sorts of weather phenomena: storms spread across the land, fog gathers, clouds release their moisture as rain, rays of sunlight break through the leaves. New atmospheric ambiences are repeatedly captured in these pictures’ often monumental formats. On Föhr, nature is subject to rapid changes of weather, and one set of motifs revolves around precisely this theme. The depicted spaces often seem to extend beyond the real limits of the pictures. Jochen Hein additionally uses a serial format to visualise changes related to the time of day, which continually provide the land, sea and sky with a different power of expression. Rothschild, by contrast, breaks open the surface of the picture – sometimes even puncturing it or adding burns to it. Viewers are challenged to face up to their relationship with the primal force of nature, knowing what they know about dramatically changing climate conditions.
A catalogue will accompany the exhibition.
