RAIMUND KUMMER
NOSTOS - ALGOS
Braunschweig University of Art
Johannes-Selenka-Platz 1 - Braunschweig
23/10/2012 - 20/12/2012
From 24 October to 20 December 2012, Raimund Kummer presents his installation νόστος – ἄλγος (nóstos álgos), developed in conjunction with the Fragment/Reconstruction research project for the first time in the Gallery of the Braunschweig University of Art.
In an equally unique and innovative experiment, Raimund Kummer again takes up the media of slide projections he had already employed in the late 1970s. In the process, he not only reaches the limits of media's technical possibilities but also our perceptual habits and the potentials of space. Kummer's work oscillates between the categories of sculpture, image and on-site installation. It invites the viewer to wander through the installation and to take it in with all his senses.
Eighty-one Kodak Carousel slide projectors are embedded in the space in the form of a permeable block. They cast mostly black filtered light in an allegatorical rhythm onto the gallery's walls, and singularly appearing white surfaces of light temporarily perforate and brighten the situation. The humming of the fans and the clicking of the Kodak Carousels, which incidentally each feature 81 slide chambers, make up the blanket of sound that parallels the visual impression in autonomous and lively manner. "The room perhaps has something claustrophobic and restricted about it for some people," Raimund Kummer explains. "I do not see it that way; I basically see it as a very large breath here."
Raimund Kummer (born 1954) is one of the artists who have broached the theme of the conditions of art's production and presentation since the late 1970s. His surveying of public space with a view of its sculptural qualities that he began at that time represents an early and radical step on the way to a new understanding of sculpture. With his photographic and sculptural oeuvre, Raimund Kummer substantially worked on broadening the concept of material and sculpture, moreover contributing to the reintroduction of the narrative element in sculpture. Raimund Kummer has been professor for sculpture at the Braunschweig University of Art since 1995.
