Artur Elmer

Excerpts from the speech at the opening of the exhibition “Niveau”, June 16, 2002 at the Kunstverein Schwäbisch Hall

The unstable space

When we enter the exhibition space from the world outside, we cross a boundary from stable space, that we also call normal, into an unstable space that is full of surprises – if we are willing to let ourselves be borne up by the visual waves that develop the structures of the space, regularly or irregularly, harmoniously or dissonantly. We are surfing in an unbounded space. You never see the artists’ works to the end. Their actual reality unfolds before our eyes in an endless concatenation of transitory states. They are set in motion by the arrangement in space and the forms of light. The artist must master these factors according to his intentions; otherwise decoration or illusion is created and that would definitely restrict the free processes of seeing and these specific art works could not develop. Rhythm in the aggregate and the individual perception of seeing prevent a final state. Unstable space continually re-articulates itself. The eye as sensors makes us receptive to nature, which we at first suspect is outside us, but which we ineluctably belong to. Whether we are receptive to it or become so or close our minds to it depends on us. As part of nature, however, we must realize that this entails a sacrifice and we must accept that this is so: the state of – ‘Moment, but linger, you are so beautiful’– is not granted to us.