October 22, 2020, 10 am – 2 pm
Many thanks to the artist Dr. Catherine Lorent for her lecture Strategies for a sensual – Gesamtkunstwerk – Total work of art and discussing the works of our participants within the Studio Program at BAI | Berlin Artist Residency, Art School, Arts Incubator, and Live Online Courses & Classes.
“Installation, Drawing, Painting, Performance – Strategies to overcome the borders of media
Combining painting, drawing and sculpture with performance, music, architecture and theatrical stagings into visually and acoustically charged installations, my work deals with an expanded Baroque concept of art that exposes the contradictions of the modern western way of life and questions dialectical thought. In my musical projects such as Gran Horno in which I act simultaneously as a visual artist and a multi-instrumentalist, epitomises this multidisciplinary approach, which at first sight appears to pander to the current trend towards “event exhibitions”. I am working on transposing complex Baroque strategies for a sensual Gesamtkunstwerk into today. Inspired or seduced by its shapes, its symbolics, spectators are often encouraged by its participatory components to give free rein to their own creativity and respond to the works idea with a subjective reinterpretation as it has been shown in the installation – Relegation – at the Luxembourgish Pavillion at the 55th Venice Biennale. It constellates several monumental paper works hanging on the ceilings of the Pavilion with musical instruments – grand pianos and electric guitars, 13 Gibson Explorers, connected to an electro-magnetic control system, accompanied by performance. I inscribe my artistic statements into Apotheosis Ba- Rock (Image) taking my cue from High Baroque thesis prints which announced disputations at (mostly Jesuit) universities. In its heyday this graphic genre, which is little known because it is widely considered as an applied art, could be printed on sheets as tall as two meters– a size even surpassed by my works. As a romantic utopia, bringing art to life in the interplay of architecture, visual arts, music and performance, the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk entered the stage of aesthetic discussion in the 18th century.
Content and focus
For my seminar at the Berlin Art Institute, I explore the connections between the total artist as a multidisciplinary artist, the total work of art as a constellation staged by strategies to overcome the borders of the single media. Besides the presentation Baroque artworks, I propose several examples of the afterlife of Romanticism, in the Vienna Secession or Bruno Taut’s expressionist architectural fantasies, the Bauhaus, which had chosen the medieval “Bauhütte” as a model, pursued the idea of an aesthetic design of the environment as a utopian new conception of society. When Harald Szeemann opened the exhibition “Der Hang zum Gesamtkunstwerk” in 1983, the utopias presented there were widely spread; its applicability and desirability appeared questionable. With the help of manifestos, theoretical and historical writings, the concept of the total work of art is examined and checked for its relevance in exchange with the students – in the discussion and in their studios.” (Text by courtesy of Dr. Catherine Lorent)
More information on the Catherine Lorent & Gran Horno Websites.
