Katinka Theis, Benedikt Terwiel, Charlotte Bastian

CROSSLIGHT is a light that intersects the path of another light, illuminating what the first one leaves dark. It is meant to reveal a yet unlit perspective on a topic or an object and is indirectly shedding light onto something that can become a new source of knowledge. 

Katinka Theis, Benedikt Terwiel and Charlotte Bastian explore the transformation and perception of landscapes. Each individual approach can be understood as crosslightning its different aspects as much as the combination of the three positions is emphasizing differences in its comprehension. Light plays herein an essential role, both figuratively and literally.

The work of Katinka Theis is pursuing the power dynamics of architectural spaces as manifested in the monumentality of urban structures, sites, and their out-sized landscapes. Her objects and installations site at the intersection of sculpture and architecture and can be understood as sculptural works or visionary architectural models that refer to form-defining, super-ordinate constructs. Her installations develop within the specify of their exhibition context, considering the formal properties as much as more atmospheric effects and impressions.
The installation „Nachtmodus“ made for the exhibition Crosslight combines several hand-bent neon tubes with an concrete landscape model. Installed under the exhibition space’s ceiling the transparent gas filled tubes form an energetic ensemble that reveals the blue color spectrum of its filling when illuminated by light sources of its surrounding.
The resulting atmosphere reminds of lightnings and weather phenomena, but changes if seen in correspondence to the landscape model displayed below. On its surface defined by topographical contour lines the model displays an architecture of curved concrete rods, which relate in shape and arrangement to the light sources above and raise question of their  interdependency and the origin of its formation history.
katinkatheis.de

Benedikt Terwiel’s „Landschaft, 2019“ shows a series of consecutive, partly overlapping white fields in size of a computer monitor, following the so called Hellweg from Berlin to Rotterdam, a route the artist walked in 2012 over 5 weeks. The work is a travel report of this journey but without any visual impressions or narratives. It shows a disembodied movement that traces the route of the Hellweg–which assumedly got its name “hell” (German for bright) from being continuously freed of darkening plants and branches – effortlessly within the brightness of a computer display. Interested in the landscapes of everyday environments, Benedikt Terwiel asks what specific cultural-historical narratives and conventions of representation they are associated with and how they can be reflected upon in his work. His interest was influenced by a series of extensive walks, including from Bonn to Basel, Florence to Rome, and most recently – under the title ‘Human Natural Habitat’ – from Berlin to Rotterdam, from which the work shown in this exhibition resulted.
benediktterwiel.info

Charlotte Bastian collects image footage of different sources to construct photo collages of environments that depict the changes in landscape caused by the alterations of the Anthropocene.
In the exhibition she presents her recent series „Glocal Series #5b“ installed on a rotating viewer of a stereoscope and a wall piece.
The images displayed were created of material taken during a research trip to Buenos Aires Province in Argentina end of 2022. The landscape was drastically shaped by a quarter of a century persistent flooding (1985-2009) followed by a subsequent drought.
The flooding – caused by canal construction that aimed to redirect water into the area’s salt lakes thus maximizing its touristic use – set large areas under water within days and only retreated in 2009 due to a lack of rainfall. Behind irreversible devastation the receding waters also left beginnings of potentially new life. Presented as a three-dimensional stereoscope installation, the assembled photos create the sensation of being present within this precarious unreal space, that in fact one barely observes.
charlotte-bastian.de

Berlin Artweek: 14.+15.09 , 3 – 7pm, 16.+17.09., 2 – 6pm