Winter/Hörbelt: Die Große Illusion

About

On the occasion of the Altstadtfest (Old Town festivities) in the new Old Town area in Frankfurt am Main, which will take place from the 28th to the 30th of September 2018, Frankfurter Kunstverein will unveil a new monumental outdoor sculpture by artist duo Wolfgang Winter and Berthold Hörbelt, specifically created for the roof of the building. 

The sculpture „Die Große Illusion“ (eng. The Great Illusion) will overlook the newly opened Dom-Römer neighborhood and shape the appearance of our building as well as its immediate surrounding. The artist duo Winter/Hörbelt, who live and work in Frankfurt am Main, are known for their artistic projects in public space which often employ factory produced materials to influence the perception of space and environment. Since starting their collaboration in 1992 Winter/Hörbelt realized several large-scale works both nationally and internationally, for example a site-specific mural in the lobby of the Amt für Straßenbau und Erschließung in Frankfurt am Main and a series of public sculptures commissioned by the University of Cambridge.

The work „Die Große Illusion“ on the roof of Frankfurter Kunstverein will be made of polished stainless steel which obtained an oscillating surface after continuously cutting and folding the material. Even though the sculpture counts two tones it is lifted into a seemingly weightless state due to its mirroring surface dissolving the form and extending it into the environment. Through the process of manipulating the steel a pixel-like structure appears which reflects always startling and fragmented details of reality.

While the new Old Town area presents meticulous reconstructions of formerly destroyed buildings, the sculpture by Winter/Hörbelt aims to dissolve forms and surfaces. The reflections of reality are stripped of their potential to offer reassuring truths and present often unsettling refractions of the surrounding, letting perception slip into illusion. The shape of the sculpture therefore ceases to be a closed entity but rather consists of the constantly changing perspectives, subject to the movement of the onlookers and changes in light.