Aufschlucken
2023 Installation
painting: inc and riversand of Danube, Ilz and Inn in acrylic on paper, 40x1.5m
water, glazed ceramic vessels, pvc hoses, pumps, mounting rails, LED stripes
[...] In 2013, the Passau was engulfed by the Danube, Inn, and Ilz rivers. The overflowing waters flooded large parts of the city, including the sculpture space of the MMK. In the exhibition, its walls were extensively covered with paper works in reference to the centennial flood, depicting the evolution of humanity from its beginning as a fish in an artistically abstract manner. The organic forms painted with pigment, river sand, and water appear to flow over their curved background, reminiscent of the waves from which they originated.
The Danube absorbs the other two rivers, it swallows them. Hartmann confuses this elemental power dynamic in her installation in the middle of the space. PVC hoses wind their way along the columns from clay vessels on the floor, ultimately returning to their starting point. The water flowing through them is thus placed in an artificially created cycle, far from any natural flow, while the length of the hoses and the interior glaze of the vessels reference the actual shapes of the three Passau rivers. Each representant of the Danube, Inn, and Ilz becomes an independent, self-contained water body, whose paths repeatedly cross in space but never become one.
By merging metaphorical and biological processes, natural and artistic processes, as well as the creative human hand and life-defining natural forces, Hartmann demonstrates in the site-specific exhibition 'Aufschlucken' (hiccupping) the interconnection of human interaction with their environment. [...]
Bettina Biebl
shown at Museum Moderner Kunst Wörlen Passau
Photographs: Theresa Hartmann
Aufschlucken
2023 Installation
painting: inc and riversand of Danube, Ilz and Inn in acrylic on paper, 40x1.5m
water, glazed ceramic vessels, pvc hoses, pumps, mounting rails, LED stripes
[...] In 2013, the Passau was engulfed by the Danube, Inn, and Ilz rivers. The overflowing waters flooded large parts of the city, including the sculpture space of the MMK. In the exhibition, its walls were extensively covered with paper works in reference to the centennial flood, depicting the evolution of humanity from its beginning as a fish in an artistically abstract manner. The organic forms painted with pigment, river sand, and water appear to flow over their curved background, reminiscent of the waves from which they originated.
The Danube absorbs the other two rivers, it swallows them. Hartmann confuses this elemental power dynamic in her installation in the middle of the space. PVC hoses wind their way along the columns from clay vessels on the floor, ultimately returning to their starting point. The water flowing through them is thus placed in an artificially created cycle, far from any natural flow, while the length of the hoses and the interior glaze of the vessels reference the actual shapes of the three Passau rivers. Each representant of the Danube, Inn, and Ilz becomes an independent, self-contained water body, whose paths repeatedly cross in space but never become one.
By merging metaphorical and biological processes, natural and artistic processes, as well as the creative human hand and life-defining natural forces, Hartmann demonstrates in the site-specific exhibition 'Aufschlucken' (hiccupping) the interconnection of human interaction with their environment. [...]
Bettina Biebl
shown at Museum Moderner Kunst Wörlen Passau
Photographs: Theresa Hartmann