Behind the cloths there is something to see: The artist Manuela Hartel has filled the "Schaukasten 4" like this. © Andrea Jaksch
How am I located? Where do I stop? Where does the world begin? This is what Manuela Hartel's art is all about, which she is presenting this month in "Schaukasten 4" at the Museum Starnberger See. For the time being, it was the last vernissage of the exhibition series, which – and this is the good news – will continue. However, new dates and artists in the series have not yet been announced.
Starnberg - This time, Elisabeth Carr has chosen the artist as one of the four curators, who – as Manuela Hartel says about herself – "normally" only performs in large rooms or in the great outdoors. "What can I do here in the confined space? Am I going to get really tight myself?" These were essential fears that she suddenly found herself confronted with when she was invited to present her own work in "Schaukasten 4". It was also "frightening", she admitted at the opening of the exhibition, especially since she has always sought and probably found "vastness and grandeur", especially in her travels. However, it is also possible to understand the questions that then came to the fore for her. "How do you feel when you're always in the distance? Would you dissolve?"
"Cornering expansiveness" – that's what her work is all about. "Even in everyday life," she adds with determination, and somehow it also suited her that she, who has always worked in large formats, had to limit herself from time to time. "That can be very positive," she says. "Confinement," she knows today after her experience in Starnberg, "is also a challenge that allows you to develop," a bottleneck. "You squeeze through and then it goes on." So tightness is needed for the breakthrough and for one's own further development.
Manuela Hartel studied media art. So it's no surprise that she has been able to develop and perfect her spatial thinking with numerous video installations and performances, also for opera and theatre. She has already worked with Elisabeth Carr at the Echosounder Festival. Her installations were on display in Kempfenhausen Palace Park.
The "Showcase 4", a piece of furniture from the 19th century, was a challenge for the artist and catapulted her into a "physical concentration". She has turned the furniture into a kind of flicker box, a magic box that opens up new dimensions for the viewer, opens up new spaces inside, breaks boundaries and expands the confined space into a universe. The cloths and fabrics installed there take on changeable forms, even from what they seem to cover, you can see through them, they transform into architectural installations and open up new worlds. "They interweave time and space," as museum director Benjamin Tillich said.
"Narrowness"
(translated Enge) can be seen in the Museum Starnberger See (Possenhofener Straße 5) during opening hours, Wednesday to Friday 14 p.m. to 18 p.m., Saturday, Sunday and public holidays 11 a.m. to 18 p.m.
ASTRID AMELUNGSE-KURTH