Vija Celmins. Desert, Sea and Stars

Museum Ludwig Cologne
15.4. - 17.7.2011
This exhibition traces a great voyage of discovery of a very special artist: heaving oceans, arid deserts, spread-ing night skies and intricate spiders' webs are Vija Celmins' major themes. Since the late 1960s, this American artist with Latvian roots has used photographs of the four motifs as subjects of her oil paintings, pencil or charcoal drawings, and many different print techniques. Museum Ludwig is exhibiting 60 representative works that show the constantly subtle variations she makes on one's perception of the same subject.

Celmins has a way of animating a surface that gives back a physical embodiment to her depicted images, which is why no reproduction will ever completely capture their magic. Her art is a triumph over the reproductive medium of photography and an intense observation of things. Celmins wants to bring what she finds in flat images back "into the real world and real time" of the viewer -- and creates pictures of timeless beauty.

We were allowed to accompany her at the McKee Gallery in New York 2010 and during the set up of her show in Cologne. Many thanks!

screened at the exhibition
a film by Ralph Goertz
original duration: 21.30 minutes
© 2011 IKS-Medienarchiv

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