Exhibition catalogue, Städtische Museen Heilbronn/Kunsthalle Vogelmann, edited by Marc Gundel with Rita E. Täuber
Texts (German/English) by Rita E. Täuber, Andrea Schlieker, foreword by Marc Gundel, interview with the artist by Rita E. Täuber, biography by Rita E. Täuber and Rose Field
200 p. with 130 colour illustrations
Format 27 x 20 cm, stiff brochure with insert
39,80 €
Ayşe Erkmen did not appear on the world stage of art unexpectedly, but with actions full of conceptual force. The artist, who trained as a classical sculptor in Istanbul in the early 1970s and now lives there and in Berlin, caused a worldwide sensation with her helicopter flight around Münster Cathedral as part of the SkulpturProjekte 1997 - the helicopter had a sculpture damaged in the war on its hook - or 20 years later with the work "On Water", also created for the SkulpturProjekte, in which visitors were allowed to walk on water in Münster's harbour basin. However, the contrast between Occident and Orient has little artistic relevance for her, as she seeks "what the place and the situation demand of (her)". In her actions, installations and interventions, Erkmen's attention is therefore focussed on the specific characteristics of the respective location. In doing so, she focuses on the incidental, the overlooked, on what conceals complexity when history and function overlap. In July 2020, Ayşe Erkmen will receive the fifth Ernst Franz Vogelmann Prize for Sculpture, which has been awarded every three years in Heilbronn since 2008 - she is the first woman in the line of previous prizewinners Roman Signer, Franz Erhard Walther, Thomas Schütte and Richard Deacon. Her temporary works disappear with the end of the exhibitions; she has always been suspicious of the permanent and fixed. Ayşe Erkmen's work does not aim to create a permanent work of art, but instead uses minimal interventions on site to create a temporary state that challenges perception and remains as a memory. Over five decades, he has created an oeuvre that is always based on sculpture and characterised by sharpness of thought, sensuality and formal consistency, in which a variety of concepts, forms, media and materials intersect on the most diverse levels. The book provides a brilliant overview of this work genesis, to which the extremely instructive text by curator Rita Täuber provides an additional key.
Exhibition:
Municipal Museums Heilbronn / Kunsthalle Vogelmann, 18/7 - 1/11/2020
