Claudia Wieser
Something In and On Something Else

Artist
Claudia Wieser

Title
Something In and On Something Else

Year of creation
2024

Technology and dimensions
Glazed ceramic tiles, aluminum, stainless steel, mirror glass on MDF, digital printing on Alu Dibond

Year of acquisition
2024

Acquisition of the FRIENDS of the Nationalgalerie and Peppermint.

For the Open House weekend in June 2024, a new permanent installation will be unveiled at Hamburger Bahnhof: Claudia Wieser uses a tiled relief to highlight the elevator shaft at the entrance to the restaurant.

As an independent sculptural object, the work breaks through and connects both sides of the wall on the border between restaurant and museum. Geometric shapes come together almost picturesquely to form figures that linger briefly like fleetingly captured people in transit. Photo excerpts reveal historical events, the stories and changing functions of architecture. Fragmented mirror elements capture the light of Dan Flavin's iconic work designed for the Hamburg train station, as do the ceiling painting and a relief in the historic transition between the restaurant and the museum, built in 1911. With figurative motifs and references like these, Claudia Wieser expands the boundaries of geometric abstraction. The shiny surfaces of the tiles, the colors and the hint of ornaments intertwine in a play of sculptural three-dimensionality and painterly flatness. The mirror elements reinforce the impression of the merging of space and time in a non-linear present. The title of the work refers to an idea from the text “Specific Objects” (1964) by Donald Judd - here Judd emphasizes the physical, phenomenological experience of objects over the representation of metaphysical or metaphorical symbolism. The perception and position of the viewer are a recurring theme for Claudia Wieser, who deals with the continuum of seeing and memory in her works. With her careful compositions of abstraction and immediate physical spatial experience, of past and present, fine art and design, Claudia Wieser opens the perception to unforeseen encounters and experiences. Anna-Catharina Gebbers curator, Hamburger Bahnhof – National Gallery of the Present