A new Post "Stella + Calatrava: The Michael Kohlhaas Curtain in Germany" was written on the September 11, 2011 at 5:55 pm on "Textile Global - Textile and Fashion News".
!! Fabric Architecture | September 2011 !!
!! By Mason Riddle !!
What happens when a near legendary American artist and an acclaimed
Spanish engineer-architect decide to play nicely in an iconic
modernist art museum in Germany? “Stella & Calatrava [1]: The
Michael Kohlhaas Curtain,” a bold, stylistically unconventional
mixed media work installed in Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie [2]
designed by Mies Van der Rohe.
Part painting, part sculpture, part architectural engineering,
“Kohlhaas Curtain” is suspended from the gallery’s ceiling.
Hovering in the expansive space, it impressively commands and counters
Mies’ visually austere upper pavilion of steel and glass.
The work consists of a 30m mural from 2008 painted by Stella on sheets
of tarpaulin that have been shaped into a circular ring and set within
a lattice steel framework by Calatrava called a torus. The result is a
vast panoramic, unobstructed viewing experience of form, color,
pattern and shifting spatial orientation.
Stella, who has long been deeply interested in German culture, named
the complex work in tribute to Heinrich von Kleist’s book Michael
Kohlhaas: A Tale from the Old Chronicle, to commemorate the 200th
anniversary of the author’s death. It is said that Kohlhaas led an
adventurous life in Renaissance Saxony that included the expropriation
of his horses and ended with his execution. If details are lost on the
unfamiliar viewer, a sense of Kleist’s narrative is conveyed through
vivid color and dynamic forms.
Calatrava has been quoted as saying, “The beauty of this
installation is that it plays with the human scale, incorporating the
spectator into the painting as well as into the sculpture… By
putting the canvas inside of the sculptural ring and enclosing it, you
almost get an infinite dimension because there is no beginning and no
end.” Indeed, one has the sense of watching a merry-go-round
outfitted with abstract and dynamic creatures except, instead of
assuming a passive position, the viewer must actively circumnavigate
the circular construction.
Admirers of each other’s aesthetic practice, Calatrava initially
approached Stella about working together on a project that would
reflect their multidisciplinary approach to creating art and
architecture. Stella’s painting, which became increasingly 3-D by
the 1980s and beyond, has achieved a fully, sculpture-in-the-round
presence. Similarly, Calatrava’s all but transparent cocoon has
merged with Stella’s work to become a compelling hybrid of painting
and sculpture.
Neue Nationalgalerie organized “Stella & Calatrava: The Michael
Kohlhaas Curtain” in conjunction with the Museo Pablo Serrano,
Zaragossa, Spain, where it will travel after closing in Berlin on Aug.
14.
!! Contributing Editor Mason Riddle Writes Regularly For Fabric
Architecture About Art And Design. !!
Read more here:
Stella + Calatrava: The Michael Kohlhaas Curtain in Germany
Links:
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[1] http://www.stella-calatrava.org/
[2] http://www.berlin.de/orte/museum/neue-nationalgalerie/index.en.php
http://www.textileglobal.com/2011/09/stella-calatrava-the-michael-koh...
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