impulses / artists

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Artists take up the tension between “Simplify” - ways of life and other sustainable models and discuss the question of the social responsibility of art and architecture.

Mirror house, Temporary installation on the Isle of Tyree (Scotland), 1996 © Ekkehard Altenburger
Mirror house, Temporary installation on the Isle of Tyree (Scotland), 1996 © Ekkehard Altenburger

Ekkehard Altenburger

Mirror house (1996)


The work «Mirror house» was exhibited in 1996 on the Scottish island of Tyree. The construction of steel and mirrors captures the breathtaking landscape of the island. Upon close study of this work, the boundary between the environment and the architectural sculpture becomes blurred. Altenburger's intrusion in the wild and untamed nature, reveals the actual contrast between this and the surrounding environment. In his work, a balance between these two poles emerges.
 

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Une maison de poupée (A Doll’s House), Paris, 2018 © Taturo Amabouz, Foto: Aurélien Mol
Une maison de poupée (A Doll’s House), Paris, 2018 © Taturo Amabouz, Foto: Aurélien Mol

Taturo Amabouz

A Doll’s House (2018)

«A Doll’s House» is not only a play in three acts by Henrik Ibsen, but also a huge doll's house by Amabouz Taturo (the pseudonym used by Japanese artist Tatzu Nishi). In 2018, it could be viewed for the first time on the external facade of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. The life-size rooms extend over three floors, are furnished and have a "trompe-l'oeil" wallpaper. One can imagine oneself as Alice in Wonderland exploring the oversized doll’s house and be amazed by the size, variance and attention to detail on each floor.

Nishi mostly works in public space and challenges the viewer with his often monumental, overloaded objects, to question existing structures and to take a different look at monuments and architectural structures - according to the motto “Making the known strange again”.

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Rough Sleepers Tower, Röttingen, 2016 © Winfried Baumann
Rough Sleepers Tower, Röttingen, 2016 © Winfried Baumann

Winfried Baumann

Rough Sleepers Tower (2016)

With the living system of “Urban Normads", which also includes the work «Rough Sleepers Tower», Winfried Baumann created a concept of mobile mini-homes. Artistic confrontations related to the themes of: mobility; housing; food; and locomotion are also incorporated within the scope of this term. 

"Rough Sleeper" is a direct reference to the homeless, a term which refers to people who sleep in the open without shelter. Baumann has been focusing on homelessness since 2000, and with this modular principle, several people can be offered private and sheltered space - on a very small footprint. Despite its functional nature, the sculptural character of his work remains prime consideration.

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Pecafil City, Firmengelände FRANK (Leibfing), 2013 © Michael Beutler, courtesy Bärbel Grässlin, Frankfurt
Pecafil City, Firmengelände FRANK (Leibfing), 2013 © Michael Beutler, courtesy Bärbel Grässlin, Frankfurt

Michael Beutler

His work «Pecafil City» is named after the bright yellow and biodegradable building material Pecafil. On average, it takes two weeks for Beutler to set up his work together with students, artists, craftsmen or neighborhood residents. The architectural sculptures usually reveal themselves after a concentrated examination: the supposed confusion or chaos shows its spatial structure and the arrangement of the modules and objects in relation to one another. The objects communicate with one another like in a walk-in still life.

The illustrated work shows an entire "city" comprising architectural bodies. On the one hand, it can sharpen the perception for relationships between architectural modules - for example in the urban environment. On the other hand, the transient material is noticeable when walking through his works. His sculptures are not designed to stay in one place forever.

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Bio Diversity (Blooming, Flying, Standing), Ausstellungsansicht Out & About, 2018 © Florian Graf, Foto: Gina Folly
Bio Diversity (Blooming, Flying, Standing), Ausstellungsansicht Out & About, 2018 © Florian Graf, Foto: Gina Folly

Florian Graf

Bio Diversity (Blooming, Flying, Standing) (2018)

Swiss artist Florian Graf is interested in space and how our psyche and our body interacts with it. The series «Biodiversity» consists of sculptures that are certainly composed of three different elements. An intorverted, an aggressive and extroverted part - as the artist himself calls them. By putting these three parts together in one way, each has its own relationship to the viewer. An attached mirror or a window refer to a supposed interior of the work.  Graf himself says: "works of art are […] quasi-alive, creatures to which we ascribe a life of their own. And the world of nature, with its infinite, combinatorial possibilities, creates a breathtaking diversity out of the same building blocks."

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