Attention! Kunstempterer Raum: Art-Empty Space Project in Würzburg Celebrates Five Years and Expands on Kiliansplatz

Project “Attention! Kunstempterer Raum”: Another round up to and including November 30th on Kiliansplatz in Würzburg – the idea was born five years ago

WURZBURG

October 5, 2023 – 5:52 p.m

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Art goes far, that’s what »Attention! Art-empty space” – right up to the performance by Hilda Gardner, founder of the “Theater Button”. Photo: Michaela Schneider

Photo: Michaela Schneider

Live painting action by artist Chris Gaebert. Photo: Michaela Schneider

Photo: Michaela Schneider

Improvisation dancer Johannes Beck Neckermann explores the “artificial empty space” in a performance. Photo: Michaela Schneider

Photo: Michaela Schneider

Five years ago they wanted to make art more visible, give it a framework and help it become more public: the four artists Gabriele Kunkel, Evelin Neukirchen, Mechthild Hart and Georgia Templiner. They succeeded with the project “Attention!

Art-empty space” – whether in front of the Berlin Reichstag, in Vienna or Turin. Above all, they helped many art projects in their hometown of Würzburg gain a different visibility. Because: With their seven square meter outdoor gallery – a cube made of metal rods – the collective is now in its fifth year leaving the gallery and museum to offer art projects a platform in the heart of the city. At the vernissage, the artists look back and look ahead.

The first cube has now had offspring with two smaller cubes. The installation will be set up until November 30th on Kiliansplatz directly behind the Würzburg Cathedral opposite the “MAD – Museum am Dom” and will be used almost daily. “We’re back,” says designer, photographer and author Gabriele Kunkel, summing it up succinctly; the joy she and her fellow campaigners are about is clear to see.

Celebrity in the art scene

Also happy because the collective had to fight for initial approval in Würzburg with numerous emails, conversations and fierce persistence, but is now perceived as a fixture of the local art scene. After activities at the Lower Market, in the Augustinian Monastery and on the cathedral forecourt, the cube team presented itself on Kiliansplatz for the first time in 2022. The actors stood there with their mouths taped shut. How quiet would the world be if all artists had to remain silent? “Danger! Kunstempterer Raum” dealt with questions of climate and balance at the “Future Week Mainfranken” and demonstrated on the sidelines of the “documenta” in Kassel.

And what will happen in 2023? Johannes Beck Neckermann looks perplexed, puts his hands over his eyes and lets his head rest on the cube frame. How visible is art? Has she fallen asleep long ago? Or does the potential audience close their eyes, not wanting to see what they could see? At the vernissage, the improvisational dancer begins to explore an installation in a cube made up of large and small cubes. Eyes opened in curiosity and amazement. Groping, bending and bending. Sometimes slower, sometimes faster. Pausing and then going on another pantomime-dance journey of discovery.

Very close

Since 2018, more than 150 artists have presented their works in the “art-empty room”. The collective always faces the question of what – conversely – a world without art would look like. And not just when art was actively mourned in various locations during the pandemic. As it wrapped around the cube to express confusion and perplexity. Or when it demonstrated in front of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, because although everyone knows the bull and the bear, hardly anyone knows the artist behind it: Reinhard Dachlauer, born in Frankfurt in 1922, died in Würzburg in 1995. In 1985, the German sculptor and animal sculptor was commissioned to create the two bronze sculptures for the 400th anniversary of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

The core of what happens in the cube is that the audience can get very close to the artists themselves and experience how art is created and develops. At the vernissage, this takes place as part of a live painting action by the artist Chris Gaebert. Faces grow from color constellations and a group of people emerges. Is this a vision of the audience that will experience cube art in the coming weeks? It almost seems as if the Berlin native, who has lived in Franconia for almost a quarter of a century, is dancing with her painting in a highly concentrated, silent duet. Watching Chris Gaebert has a meditative quality.

And art goes far, that’s what »Attention! Art-empty space” – to the performance of the actress Hilda Gardner, founder of the “Theater Button”, which aims to combine the humorous and the tragic, the banal and the special. She appears at the opening as a clown in a wedding dress. What’s missing is the groom. One who – like her – wears a red clown nose would be particularly beautiful. Hilda Gardner laughs, cries and improvises together with her audience, who can become part of a small, heartwarming story.

MICHAELA SCHNEIDER

Info: »Attention! Art-empty space« – first actions

According to Gabriele Kunkel, around 25 art events are planned until November 30th, some of which are already online at kunstleeler-raum.de. The photo installation “Athmosphere” by Sibylle Greißl-Hertrich (October 6th/7th), Mechthild Hart’s “Waiting Room” (October 11th) and Gabriele Kunkel’s photo project “Blue Dragonfly” with water, oversized selfies, the southern Piedmont will be on display – and a dragonfly (October 12th/13th).

“Danger! “Kunstempter Raum” stands for openness to art – and takes part in activities in the cube, for example in the first Poetry Days in Würzburg (October 7th to 14th) or the Open Studio Days (October 14th/15th). From November 16th to 19th, three Italian artists Pablo Mesa Capella, Sarah Bowyer and Octavio Florial will be joining me; According to Kunkel, the contact came about when the cube from Franconia was in Turin for the first time. The designer, photographer and author has also invited her own students from Hanover University to Würzburg, where they will discuss “Creativity versus AI” on November 13th and 14th. ()

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