Gruppenausstellung: Erzgebirgische Impressionen (Ore Mountain Impressions)

About

with:
Kane Do / Wilhelm Klotzek / Ulrike Mohr / Konrad Mühe /
Mpernice Collection / Ivan Seal / Johanna Tinzl / Ina Weber / Peter Woelck

Erzgebirgische Impressionen is the title of a photo series by Peter Woelck from the early seventies, predomiantly featuring portraits of participants at a traditional mountain parade in Schneeberg, Saxony, yet as well landscapes, railroad systems, and townscapes.
In the third exhibition curated by AG Woelck (Klein/Klotzek/Schmitz), Woelck’s works, presumably created near the end of his academic studies, are shown in the context of a group show. The show establishes thematic connections to the material of coal, its shipment and exploitation, yet as well to the vanishing mining tradition and the social implications.

Johanna Tinzl’s video THIS IS THE PEOPLE was made in 2013 in the context of the exhibition Capital Social at Charleroi, Wallonia, in collaboration with Philippe S3 BelGenion. At the wheel of his car, bullhorn in hand, Philippe gives a tangered monologue dedicated to the town’s citizens. Charleroi, and its district of Marchienne in particular, was once an important hub of coal and steel industries, while marked today by high unemployment and social conflict.

Kane Do’s Coal Heating is a silent monument to the era of the Berlin tiled stove, which only recently came to a close: his work is made up of stacked porcellain casts of coal briquets he kilned during the winter of 2011-12 in the coal-burning stove of his apartment, in the course of regular heating processes.

In his video Durchzug, Konrad Mühe traverses a residential block by entering and exiting through the barred windows of coal cellars. This takes place without interrupting the movement, and the video makes do without any cuts. The only source of light in the basements is one lit matchstick.

Ivan Seal attempts in his paintings to capture and condense the stream of occuring memory fragments in all their ambivalence and fragility. The selection of pictures shown here – including older as well as recent works – reflects the atmosphere in Woelck’s photographs no less than the material character (the “coal-likeness”) of other works in the exhibition.

Ina Weber’s miniature concrete air shaft is, with its characteristic shape, symbolic of a bygone industrial era and its now out-of-use functional architecture.

“Herzlichen Glückwunsch. Seit 25 Jahren auf der Schiene” (Congatulations: On Track For 25 Years): The vase with printed-on freight car symbols, and the commemorative plate decorated with a chain of drams around its edge from Wilhelm Klotzek’s work Transport refer to a GDR-type freight car which, under the designation Hbbillns 305, remained in use by formerly West German Deutsche Bahn after the country’s reunification.

The charcoal-burned cherry stones by Ulrike Mohr are part of a work group commenced about ten years ago and continued to date, for which the artist transforms organic matter, like various kinds of wood, yet also pomace, through the technique of charcoal burning.

Next to the art works, the exhibition presents a limited selection of books and artifacts, among them a bottle of “Kumpeltod” (Miner’s Death): a high-proof, tax-free GDR-brand liquor. Every miner was entitled to a monthly allowance of two liters, above-ground employees to one liter of the spirit. Fulfillment or over-fulfillment of norms would increase the quantity accordingly.