Status: 11.01.2024, 16:23 PM
By: Katja Kraft
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Dreamy: The Belgian artist Julie de Kezel lets her delicate power creatures rest comfortably by the water. © Oliver Bodmer
In the show "The Essence of the Earth" in the Bergson Pop-up at Munich's Marienplatz, the artists Julie de Kezel and Erwin Wiegerling alias e.lin celebrate nature. Our exhibition tip.
Now open the display case for a moment and blow into it – that's when wishes come true. No, of course we don't. Because the heads of the dandelions, which lie under glass in a disdainful box in the Bergson pop-up on Munich's Marienplatz, are not there to be blown away. They are art created by Mother Nature; raised to it by Erwin Wiegerling. This is the name by which he is known to churchgoers who know. The Wiegerling from Benediktbeuern is a luminary of a special craft: his Wiegerling workshops have been restoring churches, monasteries and chapels, villas in the countryside, townhouses and facades since 1972. But in all these years, Wiegerling was also always privately artistically active; has created insane works in his gigantic studio in Gaißach (Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district). Art in the original sense: the now 80-year-old made them out of an inner urge, processing in them what moved him.
Can spin straw into art: Erwin Wiegerling alias e.lin in front of two of his impressive works in the Bergson Pop-up at Munich's Marienplatz. © Bodmer
Like the gloomy moment a few years ago. A friend of mine had died; the morning after the news of his death, the grieving Wiegerling looks out of the window – and the world is white. It had snowed heavily overnight, the entire Murnau moss covered in winter powder. Wiegerling walked into his studio and let everything flow into his next work, the grief, the cold, the feeling of being lost between heaven and earth. The triptych that was created in this way now hangs on the upper floor of the Bergson Pop-up, and just looking at it makes you shiver. Preserved winter behind fogged-up windows. Ice flowers, snowdrifts. But also: this gentle beam of light that breaks warmly through the white clouds; the piece of blue sky. Tender hope in a paradise that welcomes the deceased friend.
Julia de Kezel won the Karl & Faber Prize in Munich in 2022
Wiegerling never marketed his art and didn't want to make a lot of money out of it. It is only now, in his old age, that he presents himself to the public under the stage name e.lin, it is the second time that he has exhibited. And for the first time in dialogue with another artist. The curators Benedikt Müller and Alexander Timchenko have created an exciting connection in the double exhibition "The Essence of the Earth". If you walk from the upper floor down to the basement, you will discover the works of Julie de Kezel. Like e.lin, who works with natural materials from his Upper Bavarian homeland – primarily litter, soil, ash – the Belgian, born in 1995, also dedicates herself to the nature that surrounds us. Thus, the show shows how a young woman and an older gentleman deal with the same topic artistically in different ways using the means of their time.
Award-winning: In 2022, Belgian artist Julie de Kezel won the Karl & Faber Prize for her miniature landscapes on modulated fingertips. © kjk
Julie De Kezel has won the Karl & Faber Prize in 2022. Even then, it inspired with a mix of modern technology and original materials. In Bergson, she shows fairytale-like miniature worlds in which dreamy creatures cavort, something between superheroine, fairy, wood elf. And always: herself. The artist has scanned her body in different poses with a computer and brought the digital versions of herself to life in miniature using a 3D printer. The tiny landscapes through which the delicate power creatures fly, prance, and swing are partly made of real moss, dried plants, and carved wood, and partly modulated out of plastic. The boundaries between nature and artificial imitation are blurred. What is real, what is manipulation? De Kezel inspires highly topical questions like this in a wondrously poetic way. A show that makes art lovers perfectly happy. Even without dandelion. Until February 24, 2024 at the Bergson Pop-up at Munich's Marienplatz, Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-19 p.m.