Admittedly, this is not about art with a message or even as a provocation. It’s more about decorative things, about works that are intended to make living and living more beautiful. About how this or that picture would look over a chic sofa, whether a sculpture could decorate the stairwell or whether a photo work could enhance a bathroom. Because the construction center and the municipality of Poing have now dared an experiment: an art exhibition in several model houses, which opened on Friday.
Wouldn’t this abstracted landscape by Kornelia Boy look superb hung over the bed?
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
The works can now be seen in the midst of the living worlds for another four weeks, “and all Poingers have free admission,” Mayor Thomas Stark encouraged those present at the vernissage to come back soon with many interested people. He came up with the idea of the new cooperation because of Corona: “The pandemic has paralyzed the art scene, so many people have become creative, for example exhibiting in shop windows,” says Stark. “But how much nicer is it to show pictures in a living environment instead of on partition walls?” Especially since the Bauzentrum, with around 80,000 visitors per year, offers art a completely different public traffic than any town hall auditorium, says Stark. In this respect, it is quite possible that this exhibition will develop into a real coup for the creative people in the coming weeks. In any case, the mayor hopes for success – and repetition.
Art in the model house: 16 creative people are exhibiting their works for four weeks in the building center in Poing.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
Andreas Speer, managing director of the company that operates the construction center, even recalls the Bauhaus school, in the spirit of which art and architecture are to be brought together. “Creativity, design, spatial effect – the relationship is obvious.” In addition, this is a campaign from which everyone involved has benefited: the creative people have an opportunity to present their works to a broad audience, the hosts have added an additional dimension to the interior design and the visitors can experience the interplay of architecture and art.
And in fact everyone is enthusiastic about the extraordinary concept, the representatives of the house providers as well as the artists. There are 16 of them, they all come from Poing and the surrounding area. “At the beginning we did a tour of the building together and then agreed who would take which – in just ten minutes,” says Inge Schmidt, beaming from the bottom up. “It went really smoothly.”
oven enters abstract frenzy of color: “There was a lot that had to come out,” says Daniela Rudolph. And painting helped.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
It has to be said, however, that the houses are differently suitable for art. Some have almost only glass fronts or walls that are already occupied, in others it is not allowed to attach nails. But the exhibitors also demonstrate their creativity here by working with alternative techniques or easels. “Anyone can hang up,” says Natalia Sirin and laughs. In addition, of course, the same applies to the building center: tastes differ, both in terms of architecture and art. To put it positively: Almost everyone will probably find something they like here. And after all, the works are unique, not just any off-the-shelf prints.
Natalja Herdt’s “Butterflies of Hope” hover over the heads of the vernissage visitors.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
Natalja Herdt is showing her works in the house that provided a roof for the vernissage. “I tried to put myself in the shoes of the residents,” she says, “I thought about which aspects could develop positively here”. The focus for her was not on accommodating as many works as possible, but on the question of which work could contribute to a sense of well-being. In fact, Herdt has distributed her versatile art in the rooms in a meaningful way. Heaps of colorful “butterflies of hope” hover above a glass bay window, a blossoming heart is resplendent in the bedroom, and in the office the “inner thread” reminds you to follow your own path.
Jürgen Haupt likes things tidy, both in living and in art.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
Ulla Schulz, Beate Brass, Natalia Sirin, Stefani Kling and Tamara Suchan are probably also hoping for a positive effect. Jürgen Haupt also works with glass hemispheres, placing them on his ornamental paintings to break the light and play with shadows. For another series, he uses wooden sticks, which he paints brightly and attaches to colored rectangles, creating a geometrically shimmering impression. “Creating chance, tidying up chaos, that’s my motto,” explains Haupt, who seems to feel very comfortable in “his” modern house with clear lines.
Loves wood: Melanie Kirchlechner chose the “Alpenchic” house.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
Melanie Kirchlechner is also very happy with her “Alpenchic” model, because she prefers to work with wood. The exhibition in the living environment is brilliant, she says, and the house is an absolute stroke of luck. She shows woodcuts, for example on a misused Biedermeier door, printing blocks, a series called “Blattwerke” and “fluttering” objects with dragonflies, painted lady and Co. Classic representational motifs can be found in Petra Schmitt: expressive landscapes, a yellow house, a seahorse as well as a “little kitchen story” in black and white. Or with Ilse Niedermeier. She hung “Afrika I” above the brown leather couch, and lemons and a “Goldener Hirsch” shine in the stairwell.
Inge Schmidt and her “Rosenkavalier”.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
In the case of Inge Schmidt, Daniela Rudolph and Kornelia Boy, things get a lot more enigmatic or abstract, and the viewer can explore their paintings for himself. Do these vertical areas of color represent women’s bodies? What light do you think illuminates the darkness here? And is that a distant horizon? What is certain, however, is that these painters are also concerned with conveying a positive aura. “Pictures, colors on the walls – that does something to you,” Schmidt is certain. “And I felt right at home in this house, very different from a showroom.”
Peter Böhm didn’t have to hammer a single nail in the wall: he simply replaced the previous images with his own.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
Incidentally, a single photographer is also involved in the show in the Poinger Bauzentrum: Martin Köbele loves the mountains – whether in color or black and white – and the sky, that’s easy to see. In this respect, an impressive shot of the Milky Way above the Three Peaks is probably something like a distillation of his work. Peter Böhm is also a bit out of the ordinary with his “Vulc-Art”, which he describes with a wink as “completely meaningless”. Maybe because it was born from the trash and is based on an extraordinary but simple printing process. The results, however, are impressive: figures that are as changeable as they are humorous, which immediately start the association machine in the head, similar to the Rorschach test. “Yes, everyone can and should see what they want here,” says Boehm with a mischievous smile.
Norbert Haberkorn loves reflections – which is why he chose a house with lots of glass.
(Photo: Peter Hinz-Rosin)
And then there is Norbert Haberkorn, who also likes to work with the camera, although he also shows sculptures alongside these photographs. “S 2 – Life in Transit” is the name of a photo-sociological project that Haberkorn presents with a few examples in the model house: off the train, he often captures mirrored or blurred “fragmentary realities” – that is, everyday life, but seen in a new way. Haberkorn, in turn, gave his objects the title “Dominum Terrae – dominion over the earth”. These are short, thick branches, into the wood of which the artist has driven iron rods all around. These highly aesthetic and yet martial structures are intended to make it clear how humans deal with nature, “how we torture it, how we rape it”. An artistic reflection of the divine mission. Art with a message in the model house? So it’s okay.