Finissage and artist talk

About

Michael Volkmer's objects and installations are based on ordinary, banal and even discarded materials as for example picked up hub caps, glass bottles, lamp bases or some out démodé souvenirs. They undergo a remarkable metamorphosis once Michael Volkmer has covered them with the (non-)colour RAL 1015. Based on this colour convergence, related ensembles of the similar but slightly different are created. Hub caps become church window-like objects and glass bottles, saved from recycling, transform into steles. This space between banality and stylisation leaves room for interpretations and insights.

As a starting point for the site-specific work Graue Passion at Das Esszimmer serves Holbein's cycle The grey Passion (dt. Die graue Passion) (1494 – 1500), in which he alienates the colourful world of appearances, by deliberately abandoning colour, which from a contemporary point of view, has become a familiar concept in art.

Born 1966 in Ludwigshafen (GER) Michael Volkmer lives and works in Neuhofen (GER). He completed his studies at Freie Kunstschule Rhein-Neckar in Mannheim (GER). His works received various prizes, among them the WeldeKunstpreis 2014.