Digital Art vs. Installation & Sculpture
MEDUSAS: Brigitta Weimer’s series of works depicts a jellyfish invasion as a contemporary phenomenon in the world’s oceans during the Anthropocene. (Maurer Gallery)
Digital art
First, we follow Mexican artist Roberto Barbosa into the realm of the Nepantlera—a kind of liminal space in Aztec semantics. To immerse ourselves in the video work, which plays on an endless loop, we must literally go underground: The Galerie 3AP has a historic air-raid shelter beneath its gallery spaces, not far from the Südbahnhof, which is part of the spatial narrative.
Cologne-based artist Johanna Reich works with artificial intelligence, though she prefers to refer to them as language models that she has trained to speak a poetic language called Hynthia; she presents these as autonomous bots or LED scrolls set against hybrid paintings in the spaces of the Anita Beckers Gallery . Not far from there on Fahrgasse, at DER MIXER, you can encounter two bots by Harriet Rabe von Froreich: the Tarotbot, which reads a tarot card for Instagram users, and Sisybot, which randomly generates email addresses and sends messages to them—an absurd, mechanical struggle to make contact.
Also located at Weckmarkt 3 is the gallery specializing in Eastern European art Schugar Rotariu. Stefan Ungureanu’s painted imagery is less digital art and more of an exploration of the pastel sci-fi aesthetic of gaming culture, incorporating themes of hope and disappointment in the wake of the 1989 revolution. The spectrum is expanded by media-reflective works on architecture and urban development in the exhibition spaces of the DZ BANK Art Foundation.
Installation, Sculpture & Ceramics
The Berlin-based artist duo Hauck and Plümpe (FILIALE), who repeatedly explore modern work environments in their art. Their starting points include places such as vehicle depots, off-site warehouses, smoking areas, storage shelves, and break rooms. In contrast, Frank Mädler presents a biographical introspection at the Peter Sillem Gallery: His exhibition *Selbst* interweaves autobiographical ceramics with sensitive photo series. At the Jörg Schuhmacher Gallery , the exhibition *Gefundene Welten* (Found Worlds) features Kati Jünger ’s opulently ornamented ceramic vessels, presented in dialogue with works of classical modernism.
The Maurer Gallery presents APHOTAL, a new series of sculptural object boxes and installations by Birgitta Weimer that critically examine the Anthropocene and the deep-sea ecosystem. The Goldstein Gallery presents HUFE. TATZEN. FERSENGANGER., a series of surreal and humorous animal-foot sculptures by sculptor Lothar Zaubitzer. Rounding out the spectrum of sculptural approaches is the Galerie Perpétuel, also located in Sachsenhausen, which is exhibiting objects and installations by Städelschule graduate Att Poomtagon in the show *Light/A Life Running from the Self’s Shadow*.
