WALDENBUCH.- Over the past decades, Marguerite Hersberger has developed a body of constructive works that convey a highly atmospheric sensuality. By combining a precise geometric vocabulary with clearly thought-out design, as is typical of Concrete Art or Minimalism, she conjures up vibrant constellations of shapes and colours. Although the various series that artist has developed are quite distinct from one another, she demonstrates an enormous consistency in her engagement with the theme of space and her preference for working with acrylic glass. Her oeuvre is also consistent inasmuch as it is based throughout on the same principles: limiting herself to elementary forms and structures, and playing with transparency, colour, light and shadow to create space.
After a phase of experimenting with small acrylic prisms that refract incident light, Hersberger soon began to employ transparent plastic glass, chiefly in the form of panes. Since the early 1970s, she has used it to create wall boxes and image objects with a see-through front. In every case she varies a specific theme according to her own rules. While she roughens the acrylic glass front of her Polissages by means of a specially designed grinding technique, so as to cast a veil of mystery over the interior of a work, in her Lichtpinsel (Light Brushes) she uses light-conducting glass fibres. In her Pliages, by contrast, Hersberger explores the principle of folding, and in her latest series of works she even ‘paints’ with coloured shadows. By blending the front and back planes of the image, the colour forms in these and other series merge to form new configurations.
The interspace between the two levels allows vibrant structures to arise that change dynamically according to the incidence of light and the viewer’s perspective; at the same time these works blur the boundaries between two- and three-dimensionality.
With around 50 wall objects and several sculptures, the exhibition offers a broad insight into Marguerite Hersberger’s independent work from the late 1960s to the present.
A particular highlight of the exhibition is a monumental wall installation with which the artist impressively adorns the museum foyer.
Heavy Metal. Works from the Marli Hoppe-Ritter Collection
Metal is one of the most important materials in constructive-concrete art. The wealth of possibilities it offers for processing, together with the ways its appearance and behaviour can vary, have constantly inspired new forms of design and aesthetic concepts since the dawn of geometric abstraction. The exhibition Heavy Metal features some 50 works from the Marli Hoppe-Ritter Collection, and is dedicated to how this multifaceted material has been used in art, from the late 1950s to the present day.
Whether steel, aluminium, iron or copper – each metal has its own characteristics and properties. Their colours, structures, firmness or elasticity, together with the numerous ways in which they can be processed and employed, grants enormous creative freedom. The sheer range of the exhibition illustrates what contrasts art made of and with metal can embrace: it can evince enormous physicality, or let itself be reduced to a delicate framework. And while sometimes enveloped in a velvety layer of rust, it may also allow light and shade to dance along on its surfaces.
A silvery aluminium relief (1958) by Heinz Mack marks the chronological beginning of the show; it is also a fine example of a number of works that reveal a shimmering, flowing appearance when actively viewed. Parallel to this, Martin Willing takes an experimental approach to the phenomenon of movement: his works made of high-tensile materials such as titanium and Weldural reveal the inherent vibrational behaviour of metal. Standardised, industrially manufactured products such as nails or reinforcing steel, on the other hand, are often used in serial structures, as for instance by Günther Uecker, Manuela Tirler, or François Morellet. The particular appeal of their works lies in the tension between the recognition effect triggered by the building materials, and their integration into a new, artistic context. Finally, Kirstin Arndt and Jim Lambie make the most of the virtually unlimited plasticity of sheet aluminium. The cheerful, playful aesthetics in their brightly coloured reliefs put a smile on the visitor’s face.
With works by: Sonja Alhäuser, Getulio Alviani, César Andrade, Kirstin Arndt, Bernard Aubertin, David Bill, Hartmut Böhm, Sébastien de Ganay, Madeleine Dietz, Henrik Eiben, Stefan Faas, Gerhard Frömel, Gerhard von Graevenitz, Erich Hauser, Vanessa Henn, Ewerdt Hilgemann, Mohammed Kazem, Imi Knoebel, Jim Lambie,
Camill Leberer, Thomas Lenk, Adolf Luther, Heinz Mack, Christian Megert, Gerold Miller, François Morellet, Ben Muthofer, Otto Piene, Thomas Rentmeister, Dieter Roth,
Rolf Schneider, Heiner Thiel, Manuela Tirler, Wolfram Ullrich, Günther Uecker, Timm Ulrichs, Gabriele Devecchi, Günter Wagner, Martin Willing, Beat Zoderer
