Hartmut Stockter
Hartmut Stockter
Wundergarage
March 5th – April 23nd 2005
Kirkhoff is happy to present Hartmut Stockter’s first solo exhibition in Denmark, Wundergarage.
The German artist Hartmut Stockter creates peculiar inventions – works
that stage the human fascination of nature. They articulate a loss of
nature, while simultaniously offering concrete tools to rediscover it.
One example is the work Plant Backpack. A backpack contains an oxygen
mask, transferring fresh oxygen from the plants to the carrier, when
walking around in the poluted air of the urban space. Or an earlier
work, Listening to Birdsteps, where the spectator with a stethoscope is
able to listen to birdsteps in a bird house. An example of how subtle
his works can be.
Hartmut Stockter has created new sculptural inventions for the
exhibition Wundergarage. The largest of them meets the visitor at the
entrance of the gallery: a giant balloon, which floats under the
ceiling. With its shoulder straps and a cap it invites the visitor to
’wear’ it. The Private Cartographer’s Hot Air Balloon has built-in
mirrors which enable the cartographer to visualize himself in the
surrounding nature. He will be able to watch himself from above,
wandering in nature and thereby obtaining a conformation of his actual
presence in nature.
Another exhibited piece is Park of Nocturnal Wanderers. This is an
ideal night park, not scary or rejecting, but a park specially created
for the needs of nocturnal wanderers – thought of as a retreat for the
sleepless. The planting and the animal life are specially adjusted to
the nightlife conditions; with nightingales, moths, owls, and bushes
flowering in the night. The park also contains a moon, an illuminated
pavilion and lanterns flickering in the trees.
It is characteristic for Hartmut Stockter’s works that they invite to
an interaction with the spectator. Beside their ’functional’ aspect,
which exists more on a conceptuel level than as real mediators between
man and nature, the works are aesthetic, poetic and humorous sculptures
in themselves.
Hartmut Stockter (b. 1973 in Germany) is educated from Hochschule für
Bildende Künste, Braunschweig. Hartmut Stockter has participated in
several group exhibitions in Europa as well as in Asia. He has been
living in Denmark for a couple of years and has participated in more
shows in this country, for example at Overgaden in 2004.
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