When in summer light rain hits plants and streets warmed by the sun, a very special smell is created: Petrichor. A smell that is intensely reminiscent of beautiful summer experiences and at the same time carries with it the melancholy that is always inherent in memories. The installation of the same name by the Bulgarian artist Vikenti Komitzki, who lives in Berlin, in the foyer of the L40 follows this trail and connects it with the sadness that arises specifically from alienation and loneliness in modern, industrialised life. To do this, he uses a reworked light box with the image of a globe and the addition Weltschmerz from the demolished Hotel Mondial, motifs from John Haslam's book Illustrations of Madness from 1810 and a huge sculpture in the shape of an X that puts everything into perspective. In this way, Komitzki creates precisely that ambiguity that evokes and simultaneously erases notions of invisible processes and means of control that shape reality. What remains is the feeling of a "deep sadness about the inadequacy of the world" (Jean Paul) - precisely that untranslatable Weltschmerz that seems to exists only in German.
petrichor is the 30th installation in the foyer of the Kunstverein. At the same time, the exhibition soft cruelties opens with works by Lena Marie Emrich.
