Rene Zechlin – författare

A place for representation, self-presentation and communication, resistance and protest – this lavishly illustrated volume investigates the multi-layered significance of the street in the art of the twentieth and twenty-first century as an interface for diverse walks of life and groups through international positions in painting, graphics, photography, film, performance and installation.Around 1900, the street moved into the focus of artists in the wake of industrialisation and urbanisation as an elemental component of life. Starting with the Futurists and the Expressionists, who made the street a symbol for modern life full of promises and conflicts, the subject runs like a thread through art: as a social psychogram; as the expression of collective and individual longings and fears; within the context of happenings or graffiti; and currently also redefined within the framework of ecology, sustainability and democratic movements.

Geometric abstraction as a worldview: artists like Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Sonia Delaunay played an essential part in the development of non-representational art. The volume presents an overview of the evolution of geometric abstract art and takes into account in addition to the applied arts the female perspective of the Global South with promising new discoveries.Geometric abstraction emerged around the turn of the last century from an attitude that was permeated by renewal, utopia and resistance, and that aimed at the unity of art and life. Colourful, geometric and highly attractive – this comprehensive view of the time between 1914 and the 1970s is lavishly illustrated and relates the narrative from a female, global, historical and contemporary perspective, revealing the dense network between women artists and gallerists.

A book as artistic creation: The artist Ulla von Brandenburg (b. 1974) creates multimedia works in a unique mixture of theatrical settings, object art,and performance. Boundaries between reality and illusion, interior and exterior, are blurred in her art as in this colour-saturated volume, which springs entirely from her own artistic vision.From films, textile works, dance, and song to literature, circus, and spiritualism – in the multifaceted work of Ulla von Brandenburg, the most diverse media pulsate together in a mode of theatrical expression. In doing so, she reflects on the conditions of human existence, whether as an individual or part of a group. This artists’ book offers a comprehensive overview of her work since 2018, including her latest piece developed especially for its presentation at the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum.

Waldemar Zimbelmann surprises in his works with an unusual handling of material and technique, not least at the DELTABEBEN Regionale 2018 in the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum. Woodcut, oil and reverse glass painting form the material context from which he develops his mysterious ensemble of figures. Sometimes the grain of the wood provides the contours of a drawing, sometimes portraits, landscapes or interior-like sceneries emerge from the organic structure. In turn, Zimbelmann confronts the filigree line drawing with the decorative colourfulness of the two-dimensional reverse glass painting, the cut wood image with the artificial smoothness and brilliance of the glass. The artist subtly explores the interplay of supposed opposites in surrealistic-looking pictorial constructions and transfers them into a multi-layered pictorial language that brings forth its subject matter in an overlap of figuration and abstraction. In the staging of his works, which oscillate between proximity and distance, display and demarcation, Zimbelmann creates pictorial spaces for portraits of thoughts that reveal ambivalent interpersonal relationships.This catalogue is published to accompany the exhibition at the Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen.Text in English and German