Wolfgang Ganter
Wolfgang Ganter (born June 22, 1978 in Stuttgart ) is a German visual artist.
He mainly works with bacterial cultures on photographic film as well as with chemical reactions that are magnified with the help of the microscope. His works often make use of classical paintings, the reproductions of which on slides or color negative are infected with bacterial cultures. The bacteria feed on the gelatin layers of the photographic film. The photo gelatine thus functions as a nutrient medium. The bacteria evoke all the colors that are still hidden in it and rearrange them. Each bacterium performs this coloring in a different way, just as each one forms different patterns and shapes.
Life
Wolfgang Ganter studied fine arts at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe with Anselm Reyle and Andreas Slominski , whose master class he was until 2005 . Shortly afterwards he moved to Berlin.
Ganter started working with slide film in the early 2000s, being interested in discarded slides in the bulky waste in Karlsruhe and recording changes in the film material, the cause of which he more and more investigated over the years. In collaboration with the experimental physicists Eshel Ben-Jacob and Diego Sierra and the microbiologist Klaus Hausmann from the Free University of Berlin , he researched two swarm-forming bacterial species that communicate via chemical communication: Paenibacillus dendritiformis and Paenibacillus vortex. He followed Ben-Jacob's discovery that under certain conditions they produce miraculous ramifications; but only in the Petri dish , not yet on his gelatin films.
In 2016 Ganter took part in the Art Sci Nexus Convention, an initiative that goes back to the curator Gandace Goodrich and the systems biologist John LaCava. This resulted in an invitation to the Gulbenkian Institute (IGC) in Lisbon, where he worked with nutritionists in the laboratory. In 2017 he experimented with doctoral students as part of a summer course at the School of Molecular and Theoretical Biology in Barcelona and further developed his “Works in Progress” series. In the same year he was invited to Rockefeller University in New York, where he wanted to produce a nutrient film to make gelatine palatable to the Ben-Jacobs bacterial strains. This venture was not entirely successful, but over the years Ganter had found other strains of bacteria that thrive on slide film gelatin. He bought slide films at auction on the Internet and was given permission to photograph and use well-known works in museums such as the Louvre in Paris . From thousands of images infected with bacteria, he selects the most successful, sorts out unsuccessful ones and pushes “immature ones” back into his extensive “incubator”. He continues his collaboration with museums and scientific institutions. In 2017, the art historian Nanette Salomon of the CUNY College of Staten Island made the entire discarded slide library of the university available to him.
plant
Ganter began working with bacteria during his studies in Karlsruhe. In 2004 the first series of works "Bactereality" was created. Found slides and color negatives formed the raw material.
In 2005 Ganter published his "Lost Moments" series, which deals with everyday situations and tourist images captured in photographs. But nothing can be seen of the original moments. Treatment with bacterial strains gives the images a complete transfer to a new imagery. Here, too, Ganter checked the bacterial growth on a daily basis, which was determined by the nutrient medium , fungi , temperature and the type of cultivation and finally stopped by the artist. Ganter tries to learn from each treated image and later to use it in a targeted manner. In this respect, the result is not a pure coincidence, but rather a forced coincidence.
After the treated image material has dried, its condition is so stable that it can take up to 2000 detailed images of its 24 × 36 mm bacterially treated film with the microscope. These are then seamlessly put together again on the computer to form a complete picture. In this way, prints from 35mm format can be made in any size. The original magnification limit through the film grain is exceeded almost infinitely by this organic bacterial interpolation . The deeper you go into the picture, the more new, detailed worlds open up to the viewer.
According to Ganter's statement, the “Lost Moments” series questions “the medium of photography as a conclusive, documentary tool beyond digital image manipulation”. The effect of the bacterial cultures on the chemistry of the photo emulsion becomes an aesthetic and substantive means of expression. On the one hand, a new reality will be created, on the other hand, the material structure of the analog film material will be visible and the destruction of the original chemical structure will expose photography as a "medium that creates illusions".
On the basis of the already existing series, “Works in Progress” was created in 2006, which works with classic paintings photographed in museums. The controlling interventions began here with Ganter duplicating the often large-format reproductions in small format on film. So he was able to "inoculate" a motif again and again with different bacterial cultures. The different bacterial growth influenced by the nutrient medium, fungi, temperature and type of rearing was checked daily and finally stopped at different times from picture to picture.
In 2019 Ganter started working on the series “Micropaintings”. To make them, he used a micropipette to drop two or more chemicals onto a 5 × 5 cm glass slide and immediately document a possible chemical reaction under the microscope using stitching and stacking techniques from thousands of images. In a single photo, magnified ten to twenty times, only a hairline “in the middle of a sea of chemical reaction” would be clearly visible. For this reason, different levels of sharpness must first be recorded and added up (stacking) from each section in order to then reassemble the sections on the computer (stitching). The finished composite image is peeled off as a real pigment print and laminated to a wooden support and then sealed with a layer of cast, clear plastic. So-called self-organizational processes are mainly involved in the creation of the work. In system theory, self-organization is a form of system development in which the shaping, shaping and limiting influences emanate from the elements of the organizing system itself. In processes of self-organization, higher structural orders are achieved without recognizable external controlling elements.
Since large parts of the artistic creative process are “taken over” from the artist by the medium itself, according to Ganter, every work has the potential to grow far beyond its own capabilities. The analogy to the shapes and structures in recordings from, for example, the Hubble telescope , microscopic recordings or Google Earth often surprised him himself.
Ratings
“The works of Ganter show a considerable range of expression, (...) medially located between painting and photography, stylistically characterized as abstract Informel or as colorful Bio Pop, methodically referred to as palimpsest , appropriation art or as assisted readymade . The processing of found footage (...) also applies. With such complex production processes, puristic categories may no longer really work. In the sense of New Materialism or an actor-network theory , one could also transfer agency and creative power to the insects , microbes and materials involved . "
Exhibitions (selection)
- 2005: Death is not a broken leg , Karl Heinz Meyer Gallery, Karlsruhe
- 2006: Shake Hands , Support Group Art and Culture Offenburg
- 2008: Seasick , Baer Ridgway Exhibitions, San Francisco
- 2009: Accidentanalysis , Maud Piquion Gallery, Berlin
- 2011: Inside, Inside , Cultuurwerf, Flushing
- 2012: Bacteriality , Olsson Gallery, Stockholm
- 2012: Informell Logic , Eli Ridgway Gallery, San Francisco
- 2012: Misremember , Art Foundation Baden-Württemberg
- 2013: TransPORT , Westwerk, Hamburg
- 2013: Misremember , Stuttgart City Hall
- 2013: Decomposition , Art Foundation Baden-Württemberg
- 2014: Afterglow , Reiter Gallery, Leipzig
- 2014: Bactereality , Municipal Gallery, Tuttlingen
- 2015: Casus Coactus , Burster Gallery, Berlin
- 2016: Regeneratio , Berlin Hyp, Berlin
- 2017: Wolfgang Ganter , Gallery of the College of Staten Island, New York City
- 2017: Wolfgang Ganter , Rockefeller University, New York City
- 2017: Chef d'Euvre Brisé , Ambacher Contemporary, Paris
- 2018: Parvus Miraculum , Burster Gallery, Karlsruhe
- 2018: Chef d'Euvre Brisé , Ambacher Contemporary, Munich
- 2019: Parvus Miraculum , Burster Gallery, Berlin
- 2019: Parvus Miraculum , Olsson Gallery, Stockholm
- 2019: Prima Materia , Kunstverein Kunsthaus Potsdam
Prices (selection)
- 2001: Prize of the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe
- 2004: Prize of the Heinrich Hertz Society
- 2005: Prize of the Sponsorship Association for Art and Culture Offenburg
- 2005: Graduate scholarship State Foundation Baden-Württemberg
- 2010: Residency at Cité Internationale des Arts , Paris
- 2012: Working grant from the Bonn Art Fund Foundation
- 2012: Working grant from the Baden-Württemberg Art Foundation
- 2015: Position Artfair Berlin Prize
literature
- 2019: Wolfgang Ganter: Afterglow . One-room house, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-944128-56-6 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ dw.com
- ↑ Wolfgang Ganter: Afterglow . One-room house, Berlin 2019, p. 109 ff.
- ↑ wolfgangganter.com
- ↑ a b c Wolfgang Ganter: Afterglow . One-room house, Berlin 2019, p. 25 ff.
- ↑ Wolfgang Ganter: Afterglow . One-room house, Berlin 2019, p. 24 ff.
- ↑ dw.com
- ↑ artfacts.net
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ganter, Wolfgang |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German visual artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 22, 1978 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Stuttgart |