Der dunkle, der wunde, der springende Punkt
"The dark, the sore, the crucial point" connects photographic shadow studies from the Schlemmer Master House with questions about the ideological shadows of modernity. In fragmented lenticular prints and enlarged figurines, Bauhaus aesthetics, the image of the body, and an uncannily contemporary unease become intertwined.
For the installation developed for the Werkstatthaus Stuttgart, I use for the first time photographic material I captured during my artist residency at the Schlemmer Master House at the Bauhaus Dessau in 2018.
Understanding the house as a light–space modulator, I photographed the fascinating interplay of shadow and light triggered by my movement through the space in a cinematic manner. In doing so, the architectural minimalism dissolves into motion and fragmentation. Individual sequences have now been condensed into lenticular prints, which are arranged associatively into tableaux.
The light–dark sequences, recorded across many individual images, weave themselves transformatively into the walls of the Werkstatthaus and are complemented by two collaged figurines whose extreme enlargement lends them an intensified corporeal presence.
The title refers to a costume detail worn by Oskar Schlemmer during the “Schlagwörterfest” at the Bauhaus in December 1927, noted in his diary—directly alongside reflections on the palpable rise of right-wing tendencies.
The atmosphere in the Schlemmer Master House struck me as both liberating, purist, and bright, yet at the same time spectral—as if something absent and obscure were embodied within the icons of modern architecture through their accumulated historical layers.
