wanderlust

Berliners: Welcome To Wonderland

If you’ve ever watched re-runs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, grew your own sea monkeys, cracked your own geodes, or made your own space helmet (yes, you know me better than you did before), then you know that truly great fantasy is not mere magic—it’s magic that incorporates meaning and mastery of materials. And, like the classics of TV, marine biology, geology and astronomy, “More Than Meets the Eye” at Buchmann Galerie offers up sheer wonder coupled with rock-solid workmanship.

 

Rock On

 

In fact, the curatorial concoction begins with some rocks, and well-crafted ones at that. The rock sculptures of William Tucker are looming and yet fluid, solid and still waxy, so obviously significant and yet oddly fake that they seem to be the secret love child of a Henry Moore sculpture and the rocks at Sea World. My fingers tingle with the urge to touch them (this is always a very good sign).

 

Further back I find an explosion of pink rock crystals creeping over the edge of the blue bowl in which they were incubated, and reaching down the sides of the plinth. This unusual time-based sculpture is freakishly organic, like tang or the muppets—so real and yet so unreal.

 

buchmann-galerie-2BAPS writer Hannah Nelson-Teutsch admires works at Buchmann Galerie. Photo: Chris Phillips

 

On the walls, my eyes are drawn to two strangely shaped canvases where neon pinks and blues collide in familiar gradients. Like pink elephants on parade, like tri-color slushies, like the surreal automotive art of Judy Chicago and the etherial light lanscapes of James Turell, these pieces feel both dated and futuristic all at once. Most mysterious.

 

It’s the Magical Mystery Time

 

Perhaps it is this mystery that keeps “More than Meets the Eye” so fresh. Around every corner there is a new artistic adventure—work that makes you question whether your eyes deceive you, work that makes you forget how long you’ve been staring, work that doesn’t feel like work at all, it feels like play.

 

  • Buchmann Galerie – “More than Meets the Eye” – Greg Bogin, Wolfgang Laib, Klaus Mosettig, Bettina Pousttchi, Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger, William Tucker –  November 16th 2012 – January 26th 2013, Tues to Sat, 11-6pm [Price range from 5,600 – 140,000 Euros]
Article by Hannah Nelson-Teutsch

 

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