Julius von Bismarck: Fire with Fire

Julius von Bismarck explores contemporary notions of nature in the light of climate change. In his performances, installations, sculptures, videos and photographs, his experimental approach oscillates between scientific and artistic perspectives that give rise to images of great aesthetic force.

Always on the lookout for alternative forms of perception, the artist translates nature and technology into fresh and surprising images.

His visual processing of natural events seems to want to convey the message that however mighty and devastating the elemental forces may be, there is an infinite wealth of beauty in catastrophe, and it is the artist’s task to make it visible. This contrast is foregrounded in the exhibition which is based on von Bismarck’s expeditions to several forest fire areas. The central work consist of a large LED screen with a vertically symmetrical slowed down video of forest fires. This mirror effect explicitly references the aesthetic of the inkblot images studied by the psychoanalyst Hermann Rorschach. To get to the screen, visitors pass through an installation of eight sculptures: Eternal Flames. Monuments, memorials and cenotaphs—structures enshrining collective remembrance from all over the world—provide the starting point for these sculptures. The originals in bronze or stone are reproduced in fired clay; the blazing fire is transformed into a flickering LED light.

As an all-giving, all-destroying force, fire dominates human thought—both profane and intellectual—like no other element. The title of the exhibition, Fire with Fire, references the ambiguity, mirroring and multivalency of the element—its cleansing alongside its destructive force, its civilising as well as its barbaric power.

Curator: Susanne Kleine
Director: Eva Kraus
Managing Director: Patrick Schmeing
Press Officer: Sven Bergmann
kommunikation@bundeskunsthalle.de
https://magazin.bundeskunsthalle.de/

Current exhibition:

Double Lives
Visual Artists Making Music
until October 18, 2020

Soon to come:

Max Klinger
October 16, 2020 to January 31, 2021

The Bundeskunsthalle is supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media