In the series “miteinander gegenüber ” (“facing each other”) a work from the collection of Kunsthalle Bielefeld meets a selected external work. This encounter brings new, often surprising aspects and questions to light. This time Carla Bossoms i Barra and Noriko Nishidate, both dancers at TANZ Bielefeld, deal with Oskar Schlemmer’s “Wire Figure Homo with Back Figure on Hand” (1930/31; edition from 1968) in a specially developed, two-part performance. Throughout his life, Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943) sought a new expression and a contemporary body-image language for man in an increasingly technological world – but especially during his affiliation with the Bauhaus in the 1920s and as director of the Bauhaus stage. Schlemmer’s central essay “Man and Art Figure” appeared in 1925. In the “art figure ” derived from man, the mechanical was to be combined with a new grace. Mathematics and metaphysics, construction and intuition, technical progress and cosmic timelessness were to unite in it. Schlemmer’s wall relief tells, among other things, about the creation of this “art figure”.
🠕 Videostill of the animation, based on a painting by Oskar Schlemmer
Photography & Retouch: Pascal Mächtlen
Dancers: Noriko Nishidate, Carla Bonsoms i Barra
Dancers: Noriko Nishidate, Carla Bonsoms i Barra
Costumes: Rebecca Heine, Dinara Nenortaite
Video Animation: Pascal Mächtlen
