Roland Wirtz's IMMEDIATUS at Bunkier Sztuki

Sat 21st
Mar
Roland Wirtz's IMMEDIATUS at Bunkier Sztuki

Roland Wirtz’s exhibition immediatus (Latin for ‘non-mediated’) is an account of personally and historically significant locations captured in the last days of their existence. Meditative in tone, the works shown therein deal with myths about epoch-making and final events, exemplify the ways these are perpetuated, and discreetly unveil their fundamental historical contexts. Such circumstances have been framed along situations perceptible or meaningful only from one’s peculiar point of view. The narrative illustrates how symbolic values sprout and compound identities take shape in places we eventually come to call monuments.

Capturing a fraction of time, which is an innate feature of photography, makes ground for Roland Wirtz’s projects. The artist points the lens towards buildings and destruction thereof, at unsung heroes, silent witnesses of history, and at once contexts of documented scenes. In fact Wirtz employs too slow a shutter speed to record moving protagonists; characters appear blurred, out of focus, absent. In effect, the presented works embody seemingly contradictory poetics: those of static picture and film narration. They become an ostensibly unreal, paused broadcast. Photographic images contained in the displayed installations have been created using Cibachrome, a now outdated process that produces a large print being both the negative and a unique piece.

The exhibition held at Bunkier Sztuki will cover five recent monumental installations. Among them the visitors will find parts of the Kairos series: large format positive photographs of the disused Berlin Tempelhof Airport, Gdańsk Shipyard structures on the eve of their demolition, or the non-existent Palace of the Republic in Berlin. Like the Interference series, which shows the view from the old internal German border named Todesstreifen (‘the death strip’), they depict the so-called sites of memory, legendary places of utmost importance in Poland’s and Germany’s latest history. Wirtz preserved their transient nature with sheets of photographic paper measuring seven metres in length: having set them up inside a truck converted into a double camera, he drove the vehicle exactly to the former frontier between East and West Berlin. On the occasion of this exhibition the artist set national history against events of his private life, the latter also woven around the issues of passing and death. The installation entitled 223 consists of photographs of a nearly century old apple tree that grew in his grandparents’ garden located in the industrial town of Datteln until it was felled on February 23rd this year. Containing collected relics as well as moonshine distilled from all the fruit bore in the ultimate season, 223 pays homage to the photographer’s family and their story, and at the same time bears witness to economic changes the Ruhr Valley underwent in the years of political transformation. The artist's interest in passing and his lasting need to reinterpret the related processes are further reflected in a piece of work dedicated to the old interior of late modern Bunkier Sztuki Gallery. Inspired by the iconography and symbolism of the window, Wirtz designed a multimedia simulation enabling to see the view from the Gallery’s first floor, which once was an inherent feature of this exhibition space.

Roland Wirtz is a German artist. Born in 1959 in Cologne, he currently lives and works in Berlin.

This event happens in Bunkier Sztuki

Bunkier Sztuki
pl. Szczepański 3a
x