BERLIN.- Artefact.Berlin announces its new exhibition dedicated to a curated selection of fine colorful glassware from the 1950‘s–1970‘s on view from September 2 – November 18, 2022. Transparency, Form and Color presents over 30 unique glass objects in various colors, shapes, and sizes, exhibited in honor of the International Year of Glass 2022, as proclaimed by the United Nations.
Alongside the glass objects, a large-scale unstretched sewed linen canvas by contemporary Berlin-based artist Nadine Schemmann echoes a similarly rooted appreciation of form and color. In her work, Schemmann explores the various layers reflective of human encounters – the spoken and the unspoken, giving these moments a lasting expression. The levels of transparency, the flow of color and its shape mirrors these interactions. In lost connection to mono, 2021, the vibrant green, yellow, and blue, added impulsively to the canvas, represent one of these interpersonal moments in time.
Inspired by the ways in which these two distinctive mediums employ form and color, cultural entrepreneur Anna Rosa Thomae, curates this assemblage as an exemplary symbiosis of art and design, as per Artefact.Berlin’s mission to support and present these intrinsically connected disciplines.
Over 9000 years ago, the invention of glass by mixing three primary ingredients – silica sand, soda, and potash combined at high temperatures – created an extremely versatile material that with skillful craftsmen and artists reached new artistic heights. Today glassmaking holds an enviable place among art and design. Celebrating this shape-shifting material, the glass vases and objects on display are all mouth-blown and hand-crafted in delicate colorful glass to create sophisticated works of art conveying intricate craftsmanship and a sincere sense lightness. Distinctive for their color variations, ranging from lush Prussian/cornflower blue, cherry red and petrol to pale pastel colors, the pieces are shaped in novel fashion in graceful forms adding a modern sensibility and richness to traditional materials.
Selected objects in the exhibition can be attributed to Albin Schaedel, the internationally renowned glass artist from the Thuringian Forest in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). Profoundly interested in experimenting and developing new techniques, Schaedel's affinity towards unconventional shapes demonstrated his excellent knowledge and skill of the versatile material. More specifically, he developed the "Schaedeltechnik,” a new technique of blowing vessels with a torch through an assembly technique producing unique pieces.
Anna Rosa Thomae explains, “The subtle clarity and craft of the glass finds perfect harmony in Schemmann’s study of color and form.”
Predominantly working with large-format linen and various techniques, Nadine Schemmann’s work translates encounters, conversations, and moments in diverse shades on the canvas to engage in emotional interactions. The process involves dying or bleaching the material to then be covered with ink, oil paint or chlorine bleach, resulting in striking, but unexpected color paths forming organic, endlessly changeable edges on the linen canvas. With a desire to expand her color palette, Schemmann materializes feelings as different shades to create an expressive and sensory visual language translating encounters as the deepest and most honest form of dialogue.
Reflecting the fragility of interpersonal relationships, Schemmann's paintings find their origin in the interstice that results when two people meet – crafting the space which remains free of color and that which is delimited by cut edges and seams. Only sometimes she stretches the linen fabrics on frames, never banishing them behind glass. Often, they hang freely in a space, or in nature, where they are exposed to wind and weather, where the color and fabric change with time. Just as interpersonal relationships cannot be preserved and made durable, Schemmann does not place this expectation on her paintings.
