Art reflects the longings of mankind

NordArt is one of the largest annual exhibitions of contemporary art in Europe. This year, it celebrates its 25th anniversary with many special projects and looks back on the winners of the NordArt Prize and the Audience Award since 2010. NordArt aims to reflect global contemporary art developments and focuses on one country each year. Poland, Turkey and Mongolia, for example, have been the focus so far.

»Like a seismograph, art records the upheavals in society. It reflects the truth and the longings of humanity. Artists all over the world are on a journey to build dreams for the future from the experiences of the past. They [...] dissect social developments of the present – and set new utopias against hopelessness«, says Wolfgang Gramm, chief curator of NordArt. This year, 20 Mongolian and 26 Chinese artists will once again be shown as part of a special project. The anniversary edition with a total of 200 exhibiting artists will take place as usual on the grounds of the historic iron foundry in Büdelsdorf from June 1 to October 6.

The artists include Robert Bluj, Marianne Hopf and Mathias Kadolph, who are taking part in the Art.Salon artist program. In his figurative paintings, Vilnius-born painter Bluj uses the canvas as a kind of mirror of the subconscious and human perception. His surrealist-inspired paintings make use of realistic forms of expression, but are manifestations of forced and voluntary human relationships and the movement of people through time and space.

In large-format paintings, Marianne Hopf from Freiburg im Breisgau explores the elementary forces that shape matter and nature, and how people can live with and within these forces. The landscape is a space in motion, in flux, characterized by elemental forces such as the flowing and freezing of water, the shattering and overlapping of layers of stone. Through abstraction, Hopf directs the viewer's gaze to what lies behind the visible: the artistic exploration of the natural dynamics that shape our living space. It is the overwhelming power of natural forces that fascinates Marianne Hopf. At the same time, it becomes a challenge to find a way of dealing with these forces that makes life possible. At NordArt 2024, the artist will be showing her new series ShowDown for the first time, which focuses on fire as a force of nature.

The sculptor Mathias Kadolph captures in his sculptures what is not entirely tangible. His preferred material is wood, with which the artist forms his very own structures. They explore the incomprehensible, the spaces between pole and antipole, such as light and heavy or stable and unstable. The sculptures trigger processes of perception and thought in the viewer, which they also represent. Kadolph's works defy familiar art-historical classifications such as abstract, concrete or figurative; rather, they are creative expressions of physical and mental spaces in which people move.

The photographs by Marianne Hopf were added on June 03.