Project #8
25. November 2022 - 05. February 2023

Blick in die Ausstellung



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Blick in die Ausstellung

Blick in die Ausstellung

Project #8

DavisKlemmGallery Projektraum, Kirchstraße 4, 65239 Hochheim am Main
Project #8: Birgitta Weimer
The stars can be seen daily from 4 till 10 pm.

ARTIST
Birgitta Weimer was born in 1956 in Gemünden am Main and studied with Sigmar Polke, Kai Sudeck and Ulrich Rückriem in Hamburg at the Hochschule für bildende Künste. Since then, she has been interested in structures, which she examines in an almost scientific manner. Her work is regularly shown in solo and group exhibitions in Germany and internationally, including Osthausmuseum in Hagen (2017), Kunstmuseum Linz, Austria (2017), Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, USA (2011), and arp museum in Remagen (2011). Her work is represented in numerous public collections, including Museum Ritter, Waldenbuch, the collection of the German Federation of works after 1945, Berlin, and in the collection of the foundation Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum, Duisburg. She lives and works in Cologne.

MATERIALS
Epoxy resin and lighting technology. Birgitta Weimer describes epoxy resin, which is used in many areas, as the "bronze of the modern age": Floor sealing, shipbuilding or model making, for example. Artists like to use it for small-format editions. The Messier objects, however, are not editions, since each one is unique and depicts a different star map. Nevertheless, the ellipsoid shape of the Messier objects is always the same, thus allowing the mold to be used multiple times. From the inside, the objects are bright so that no light is absorbed. The lighting technology inside is waterproof and consists of metal halide lamps dimmed to 240 volts - normally these are used for lighting shop windows, a purpose they indirectly serve again here in the Hochheim project space.

PRODUCTION
The very precisely crafted Messier objects by Birgitta Weimer are aesthetically pleasing and "simply beautiful". They refer to the work of the French astronomer Charles Messier (1730-1817), who created the basis for the systematic exploration of galaxies, nebulae and star clusters with his star charts - the "Messier Catalog". The designation "Messier" or "M" with a number as an addition for naming star images has survived until today. Birgitta Weimer uses high-resolution professional star charts plotted on paper. Using these charts, the stars are perforated onto the epoxy resin to create the star map. Using light, the stars on the object are later projected onto the surroundings.

INFLUENCE
In many of her works, Birgitta Weimer's focus is on microstructures, which she depicts in huge dimensions. In this case, it's the other way around: something immeasurably large - the starry sky - is shrunk down and reduced to a room format. At 90 cm in diameter and 45 cm high, an entire starry sky fits comfortably in the trunk of a car. In her contemplations of macro- and microstructures, the artist adopts scientific methods. Although she works in a scientific way and makes the incomprehensible comprehensible, she still maintains the mystical character of scientific order in universal chaos.

INSTALLATION
Light installations are always fascinating. Light attracts people, creates attention and yet it is intangible. Colored church windows - a kind of medieval light installation - were seen as a representation of heavenly Jerusalem: something imponderable was represented in an palpable medium. This is also how Weimer's Messier objects function. Inconceivably distant and spatially large contexts are brought brought together through the medium of light. It is not only the obect itself with the light inside - the "tangible" - that is the installation, but above all the spots of light that it creates: on walls, ceilings, floors and random people passing by, who become the projection surface of Messier's star map.

THE SPACE
The 20 m² room, in which pens and exercise books were previously sold, is now available to artists from the DavisKlemmGallery as a project space. Changing projects, installations, works of art and artists can be discovered here. The current presentation will be on view until February 2nd, 2023 and can be seen daily from 4 to 10 pm.