Fontes e sequestros

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fontes e sequestros is the name of a work of art by the Brazilian installation and concept artist Renata Lucas from 2015. The central component of the work, a fountain , is located in the courtyard of the listed building at Linienstraße  155 in Berlin-Mitte .

In the work of art, Lucas combined the cast structures of three Berlin fountains from different architectural eras to create a new historical symbol. The internationally active artist was represented at several biennials and in 2012 at the documenta in Kassel. Her works have been awarded numerous prizes, including the 2009 Schering Foundation Art Prize . The focus of her conceptual art is on taking up historical landscapes and architecture, exposing their structures and reorganizing them in the present.

Fontes e sequestros

Occasion and location: Gallery Weekend 2015 and the Linienstraße commercial area

Street front of the Linienstraße 155 industrial estate

The work of art was created as part of the Gallery Weekend 2015 and was presented in May 2015 by the neugerriemschneider gallery in the commercial complex at Linienstraße 155. The listed residential and factory complex was built in 1892 in the Spandau suburb according to plans by the engineer F. Knoll. According to the monument database, the most striking expression of the original industrial use is “the former boiler house with the towering chimney on a square floor plan. The facades of the elongated factory wing made of yellow, unglazed clinker bricks are loosened up and structured by ribbons, lintels and ornaments made of red shaped bricks , which are designed as tracery in the area of ​​the parapets . It is unusual that the main facade of the tenement house was given this facade design typical of industrial buildings at the time. The factory in Linienstraße, with its buildings still based on the model of contemporary factory buildings, represents an early form of the commercial complex so typical of inner-city Berlin. "

The shaped brick strips of the building architecture are reflected in part of the fountain, which is placed in the middle of the courtyard in front of the former boiler house. The architecture is also taken up by three small pools of water in the gallery.

Art research and the three historical fountains

Brainstorming

In search of elements for her system, Renata Lucas roamed the city beforehand and researched Berlin's waterways and fountains. She finally selected art styles from three Berlin fountains from different social contexts and epochs for her work of art: the Triton fountain from the Wilhelmine era , the Eva fountain from the 1920s and the dance of the youth from GDR modernism .

f1Georeferencing Map with all coordinates of the fountain of the work of art .: OSM | WikiMap

Triton Fountain, Tiergarten (1888)

Triton Fountain by Joseph von Kopf (1888)

The Triton Fountain ⊙ by the sculptor Joseph von Kopf from 1888 stands in the middle of the Großfürstenplatz in the Großer Tiergarten . In a circular sandstone basin 4 meters in diameter, a triton sculpture made of marble kneels on a rock base layered out of blocks . The ancient Greek sea deity clasps a large fish in both arms, from whose mouth the fountain comes out. The inner wall of the basin is made of yellow clinker bricks. The 2.50 meter high fountain was restored in 1987 by the sculptor Harald Haacke . The sculpture ensemble Four German Streams is arranged in a semicircle around the fountain . The allegorical representations, each around 4 meters high with a base, were made by the sculptors August Wittig ( The Vistula ), Rudolf Schweinitz ( The Oder and The Rhine ) and Alexander Calandrelli ( The Elbe ). The fountain and the sculptures are under monument protection. The adjacent picture from 2008 shows in the background the empty plinths of the sculpture group Four German Streams , which was re-erected in 2015.

Eva fountain, Tempelhof (1927)

Eva-Brunnen , by Wolfgang Geuter 1987 (1927)

The Eva Fountain ⊙ is located on the western central island of the Alt-Tempelhof street , the former village green of Tempelhof , near the Alt-Tempelhof underground station . The circular pool has a diameter of 4.20 meters and is made of porphyry . In the middle is a funnel-shaped bowl, also made of porphyry, which rests on a pedestal. The bowl is crowned by a sphere on which a roughly life-size female nude figure made of bronze stands. The total height of the system is 3.50 meters. The work of an unknown artist dates from 1927. The war-torn facility was redesigned in 1987 by Wolfgang Geuter using old photos. In 2012 the system received a new Eva figure.

“The relationship between the 'Eva figure' and the fountain is reflected in the following components: When the figure playfully stretches one foot to one of the four water jets that emerge from the ball via the tips of the leaves, it comes into direct contact with the flowing water. The circular shape of the fountain can be heard in the rotation of her body. The lines of the arms and hands correspond to a reversal of the bowl shape of the basin, they are a response to the basin rim. In this way, a rhythmic and formal integration of the figure into the fountain is achieved. "

- Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment: Eva-Brunnen

Dance of the Young, Marzahn (1984)

Dance of the Young by Wolfgang Weber (1984)

The Tanz der Jugend ⊙ fountain is located in the green area at Pekrunstraße / at the corner of Scheibenbergstraße in Marzahn . The work of the artist Wolfgang Weber from 1984 consists of a round artificial stone basin (⌀ 7.10 meters), the edge of which is covered with blue glazed ceramic plates . The water jets out of nozzles that are arranged in a semicircle in ten groups, in flat arcs towards the center of the basin. The fountain system gets its special character from four round columns of different heights, the symbols of the dancing youth. There are three pillars in the basin, one outside. The columns have a diameter of 0.70 meters and their heights vary between 1.60 and 2.50 meters. While the basin is kept simple, the columns are made of multicolored ceramic parts and decorated with ornamental motifs. Ingeborg Ruthe wrote in the Berliner Zeitung : “Completely GDR modernism in abstract, expressive ceramics” and continues: “The colorful columns stand for socialist joie de vivre and lightness. Ideological heavyweights for sure. "

Association in the Fontes e sequestros

Plant and structure

Fontes e sequestros
Fontes e sequestros , detail

Lucas allowed the three fountains to flow together in the installation Fontes e sequestros with considerable structural effort. She had molds made of segments of the basins and put them together in the cobblestone gallery courtyard to create a new, bubbling fountain; She ignored the sculptures / figures of the historical models. Two intersecting semicircles meet in the central axis, which is formed by a metal grate, offset, so that six individual segments / basins with different depths result. The basin, modeled on the Triton Fountain and partly tiled in yellow, is crossed by the Eva Fountain. This in turn crosses the dance of youth with its blue ceramic tiles. Lucas planted moss in some cracks in the joints . The water gushes from five fountains, which are also designed according to historical models. As a ready-made , the endless cycle consists of water from the Triton Fountain, which was drawn from the basin with buckets and brought in barrels from the zoo.

The water cycle is also connected to an exhibition room in the gallery via an underground pipe. Here it pours into three small circular basins that are embedded in the floor. Based on the shape of the courtyard fountain, these basins also overlap. By being worked into different layers of the concrete, they also reveal the historical floors of the gallery space and refer to the structural history of the commercial area.

Meaning and title

According to the press release for the opening of the work, the Fontes e sequestros, cropped and robbed of their central sculptures, form fragments of Berlin's public space that Lucas deconstructed and reorganized in order to interweave time and space. The mutual exchange between the individual structures is taken up by the flow of water. The interlocking of fragmentary structures from different social contexts and epochs examines the structures of the city on the basis of their built language and revealed interfaces. As rivers, canals, groundwater and sewerage flowed through and around the buildings of a city, they took possession of them and connected private and public spheres in partly invisible ways. In this way, Lucas' intervention in the architectural and urban systems of the city - as in her work in general - determines the complex relationship between the individual and his urban environment.

The title Fontes e sequestros ( Portuguese for: sources / wells and kidnappings ) stimulates thought and refers, among other things, to the “kidnapping” of the historical well structures and their unification to form a new well. In addition, the water from the courtyard fountain is brought into the interior of the gallery or “carried away from the outside to the inside”. The border crossing between inside and outside was already found in Luca's work Kunst-Werke, 2010 with the Portuguese title Cabeça e cauda de calvalo ( head and tail of the horse ) in the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin-Mitte, for which she won the art prize of Schering Foundation .

reception

Granada in Berlin

The receipts for the work of art available so far (as of May 2015) are extremely appreciative. For the daily newspaper Die Welt , the Fontes e sequestros were already among the seven highlights of the Berlin Gallery Weekend, in which almost fifty galleries presented works of art. The art and culture blogger Ute von Erlach described the fountain as her absolute favorite of the art marathon. He embodies a piece of “ Granada in Berlin” and makes her landscape architecture heart beat faster (“[…] and it makes my Landscape Architect's heart sing.”). Ingeborg Ruthe points out in the Berliner Zeitung that Lucas expands the viewer's thinking space from outside to inside - into the empty, gray and white painted skylight gallery hall with black screed . In the middle of the empty floor you can see nothing more than three types of drains at different depths, which remind you of the three eyes of a mystical being, perhaps an unknown water god. Finally, Ruthe muses in her reception:

“Space, time and thoughts are intertwined between well, water and these dry drains. It almost becomes philosophical because one understands how much everything is related to everything. Water is incessantly flowing, gushing and flowing. And time, this river without banks, passes without caring about us humans, all our senses, aspirations and madness. "

- Ingeborg Ruthe: Bubbling court art . In: Berliner Zeitung , 9./10. May 2015.

Web links

Commons : Fontes e sequestros  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gallery Weekend Berlin 2015. In: Visit Berlin.de, undated (accessed May 11, 2015).
  2. ↑ Birgit Rieger: A tour through the Gallery Weekend. In: Der Tagesspiegel , April 30, 2015.
  3. ↑ Architectural monument of the commercial complex at Linienstraße 155 .
  4. ↑ a b Renata Lucas works with the urban environment in a new exhibition. In: PIPA Prize, May 8, 2015 (English).
  5. ↑ a b c d Ingeborg Ruthe: Sparkling court art. The Brazilian Renata Lucas came up with a Berlin fountain game for the neugerriemschneider gallery. In: Berliner Zeitung , 9./10. May 2015, p. 27.
  6. ↑ Gabriela Walde: Gallery Weekend - A guide through Berlin art. In: Berliner Morgenpost , April 30, 2015.
  7. ↑ Triton Fountain and Four German Rivers ,Entry in the Berlin State Monument List .
  8. ↑ Triton Fountain and Four German Streams in the district lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein .
  9. ↑ Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment: Triton Fountain. In: Berlin.de, undated (accessed May 11, 2015).
  10. ^ Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment: Eva-Brunnen. In: Berlin.de, undated (accessed May 11, 2015).
  11. ^ Senate Department for Urban Development and Environment: Dance of the Young. In: Berlin.de, undated (accessed May 11, 2015).
  12. ↑ a b Renata Lucas . May 2 to May 30, 2015. In: monopol , magazine for art and life. Reproduction of the press release (undated, accessed May 14, 2015).
  13. ↑ Renata Lucas, 2015, Fontes e Sequestros. By neugerriemschneider, making-of on Vimeo (accessed May 11, 2015).
  14. ↑ Renata Lucas, 'fontes e sequestros'. Installation view, neugerriemschneider, Berlin. In: ArtAddict.net, International Contemporary Art Galleries Scene, Paris (English, accessed May 14, 2015).
  15. ↑ Risk of relocation. KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin. In: monopol , magazine for art and life. September 13, 2010.
  16. ↑ Art Prize of the Schering Foundation 2009. In: Schering Foundation (accessed May 14, 2015.)
  17. ↑ The seven highlights of the Berlin Gallery Weekend. In: Die Welt (Welt online), April 29, 2015.
  18. ↑ Granada in Berlin. In: Ute von Erlach. Art, culture and current affairs. May 4, 2015.

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '39 "  N , 13 ° 23' 39"  E