PRESS RELEASE : 7 June 2002
Theatre of the Unseen: Photographs by Erasmus Schroter
14 September - 3 November 2002
Cotton Gallery: mac, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, B12 9QH.
Open Tuesday to Sunday 12noon - 8pm Admission Free
mac is delighted to launch this spectacular photographic exhibition of the work of Erasmus Schroter.
Bunkers decaying on the beaches of Northern Europe and the military detritus of forty years of Soviet occupation abandoned in the forests of Eastern Germany populate the breathtaking This series of large format photographs 9 for which Erasmus Schršter has become well known in Germany.
Born in Leipzig in the former East Germany in 1956, Schršter's mission as an artist has always been to investigate - and to place centre stage - the things and people that society overlooks, forgets or simply fails to notice. The decaying monuments of once proud political and industrial traditions and the men and women who created them are the raw materials in a body of work which, although focussing on the unnoticed, is quite literally theatrical. Schršter presents a world bathed in a dissonant and eerie light, which is achieved by the artist's use of 'industrial strength' theatrical spotlights, rather than by digital manipulation.
Two very distinct 'artworlds' grew out of the social and political union of Germany which commenced as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The tension between the supposedly freethinking Western artworld and the artists of the state sponsored art system of the former East is widely documented. Less well known is the work of artists like Erasmus Schršter who never bought into the state art system and were, in fact, considered so 'undesirable' by the political elite in the East that they were allowed to emigrate from East Germany's otherwise closed society.
What emerges from this 'other' German artworld is an extraordinary purity of technique and execution (partly derived from the traditional and labour intensive teaching methods in the former East Germany's art schools) and a unique vision borne of years of 'inner emigration' and a rejection of state culture.
The launch of this exhibition complements Leipzig in Birmingham, a festival which celebrates the strong links between the two cities of Birmingham and Leipzig.
The exhibition is a collaboration between the University of Hertfordshire, mac and the Focal Point Gallery
Ends
For further info please contact:
John Godbold on 0121 440 4221 ext 218
Email : john.godbold@mac-birmingham.org.uk o
Venue Details: mac (Midlands Arts Centre), Cannon Hill Park, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B12 9QH.
Information/ Box Office: 0121 440 3838
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