The fascinating ordinary: Claudia Berg's views of Italy

From Sicily to Veneto, Claudia Berg has traveled through Italy and captured her impressions. It is not the tourist strongholds that interest the artist, but remote buildings and landscapes that seem unspectacular at first glance. She examines the relationship between landscape and architecture: how do buildings and paths harmonize with nature? Claudia Berg searches for what existing places only reveal at second glance: for the sublime in the simple, the plain. The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities is dedicating a solo exhibition to the artist that opens up a new approach to much-traveled Italy: Hier blüht dauernder Lenz, hier strahlt fast zeitloser Sommer (Here, permanent spring blossoms, here shines almost timeless summer) runs from September 25 to December 18, 2024, admission is free.

One of Claudia Berg's preferred techniques is drypoint, which allows for a certain spontaneity. The emotional effect of discovering the landscapes can thus be transferred directly to the artwork. In some cases, the etchings are enhanced with oil paints. Berg has developed her very own aesthetic, which is also reflected in her oil paintings on canvas. The artist succeeds in capturing the warmth and special light of Italy in a rarely seen immediacy.

On October 28 and November 22, both at 4 p.m., the artist will give a personal tour through the exhibition. There will also be a panel discussion on November 22 at 6 p.m. on the subject of Italian Reception - Contributions from Berlin and Rome, with Claudia Berg and Gregor H. Lesch, Director of the Casa di Goethe in Rome, among others. Drawings of Italian landscapes by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, Jakob Philipp Hackert and Christoph Heinrich Kniep, among others, will be shown from the museum's own collection. The event will take place in the Leibniz Hall of the Academy building at Gendarmenmarkt (Markgrafenstraße 38, 10117 Berlin).

Claudia Berg, who is taking part in the Art.Salon artist program, studied graphic art and painting at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle (Saale). The artist has been teaching at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences since 2013. Berg won the Otto Ditscher Prize for Book Illustration in 2009, the Imke Fokerts Prize for Fine Art in 2011 and the Hans Meid Prize in 2022, among others. Her works can be found in numerous museums and public collections such as the Casa di Goethe in Rome, the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg and the British Library in London.