Cologne-based artist Silke Schatz’s exhibition at our Berlin gallery space presents various works from her long-term project Manheim Calling. Spanning two and a half years, the project documents the village of Manheim – in the zone of the Hambach open-cast lignite mine – that will soon be wiped off the map.
The exhibition, entitled Vanishing point, captures the essence of Schatz’s fieldwork.
Abandoned territory
The artist identified the plants that have reclaimed the territory abandoned by humans and has recorded their wind-blown silhouettes in cyanotype, preserved towering umbellifers, declaring them canvases and exhibiting them. She paid homage to the village’s overgrown orchard, taking imprints of the bark structures of selected trunks using clay. In autumn, she harvested and preserved the fruit. And she collected shards of pottery – evidence of human presence – arranging them like archaeological finds in glass vitrines.
Explaining the title Vanishing point, Schatz describes it as symbolising the “I-It relationship”, the relationship between culture and nature. It also marks the end of her project in spring/summer 2024, as Manheim becomes one of the last villages in the region to be excavated.
About Silke Schatz
Much of Silke Schatz’s work is based on memories. Through those her fine lined isometric drawings visualize architectural structures. She translates layouts into large-scale installations and colorful sculptures.
Sequencing text and images in conjunction with her exhibitions, Schatz is concerned both with memories that one experiences and those one inherits. She deals with political and societal topics, inherently interlacing her own experiences into precise but unstable representation of recollections.
Vanishing point
Silke Schatz
Opening:
Thursday, 18 January 2024, 6–9 pm
Duration:
19 January–2 March 2024
Schaperstrasse 14
D – 10719 Berlin
t +49 30 315 665 80
More about the exhibition here.
Image: Silke Schatz, Installation view, Vom Leben in Industrielandschaften, den Strukturwandel im Blick, Leopold-Hoesch-Museum Düren, 2022. Photo: Peter Hinschläger
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