For the 19th Gallery Weekend in Berlin from 28 to 30 April 2023, the experimental showroom for spatial art, media art and performance “Luxoom Lab” in the former crematorium in Wedding will present the Düsseldorf light artist Mischa Kuball with his installation “five planets”.
Image above: Mischa Kuball, five planets, 2015, installation view Museum Folkwang, Essen © Archiv Mischa Kuball, Düsseldorf / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023
“Incessantly, letters dance across the walls. Only after concentrated observation are the names of the five planets Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn and Venus legible, which the artist Mischa Kuball (*1959) projects onto disco balls for five planets. The reflected rays of light take in their surroundings and connect language, light and space. In the process, the multiple reflections can evoke experiences of dance, music and trance, but can also trigger dizziness – a feeling that undermines the static of the factually given space like the weightlessness of the universe. five planets thus also hints at the infinity and incomprehensibility of the universe.”
Source: Museum Folkwang
The Luxoom Lab, a unique space in the former crematorium Wedding, is an experimental playground for pioneers and experiments, as well as a platform for events and art exhibitions in the field of spatial, media art and performance.
Mischa Kuball: five planets, 2015
Space-related light installation with 5 mirror balls, 5 rotating motors, 5 gobo spotlights, 5 lenses, 5 gobo templates. Dimensions variable.
With the installation five planets, Mischa Kuball attempts to make the incomprehensible and inconceivable of our universe tangible. At the same time, he alludes to the development of human knowledge, which in the course of its evolution, especially since the Enlightenment, has become a space traveller. Furthermore, he contrasts the classical metaphor of light and its idea of enlightenment thinking with the experience of social and political spaces. With the installation five planets, Mischa Kuball attempts to make the inconceivable and incomprehensible of our universe tangible. Their mirrored surfaces are illuminated by light stencils so that they cast the names of five planets of our solar system as fragments of light onto the walls and floor of the room. The interlocking reflections of the disco balls network the dark room and suggest the presence of Venus, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Mercury. With their reflections expanding and overlapping in space, a universe of its own is created.
Mischa Kuball
Mischa Kuball was born in 1959 in Düsseldorf/DE. He lives and works in Düsseldorf/DE. Mischa Kuball has been working in public and institutional space since 1977. Using the medium of light, he explores architectural spaces and their social and political implications. He reflects on different facets, from cultural social structures to architectural interventions, in order to emphasise or recode the respective architectural historical context. Politically motivated and participatory projects focus on the intertwining of public and private space and provide a platform for communication between the participants, the artist, the work and the urban space.
Mischa Kuball has been Professor of Public Art at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, since 2007. Before that, he was professor of media art at the Hochschule für Gestaltung/ZKM, Karlsruhe. Since 2015 he has been a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Düsseldorf. In 2016, he was awarded the German Light Art Prize.
WHEN?
Opening hours for Gallery Weekend 28 – 30 April 2023:
Friday, 11 am – 6 pm Preview and 6 pm – 9 pm.
Saturday, 11 am – 7 pm
Sunday, 11 am – 6 pm
Wednesday to Saturday, noon – 6 pm
until 17 May 2023
WHERE?
Luxoom Lab
Plantagenstraße 30
13347 Berlin-Wedding