Björn Weltbrandt Wallbaum | IMPERIUM & FOREST PIECES

The Weißenburg Cycle: Between Armament and Abstraction

Welcome to the exhibition at the KulturForum Weißenburg. The works on display combine two seemingly contradictory cycles of work into a dense, existential spatial experience. It is an artistic quest for traces that is deeply rooted in the historical and art-historical soil of Weißenburg.

Forest Pieces (The Weißenburg Cycle)

The small-format paintings in this series lead the viewer into pure abstraction. The title “Forest Pieces” should not be misunderstood as a naturalistic description of a landscape—it functions as a metaphor. The paintings depict neither trees nor nature in the classical sense, but rather serve as surfaces onto which psychological moods and emotional fields of color are projected. The compositions flow, breathe, and develop an atmospheric depth.

Here in Weißenburg in particular, this cycle seeks a conscious, respectful dialogue with the town’s art history: In the year marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Georg Karl Pfahler, the world-famous pioneer of Hard Edge who worked in this town, this body of work offers a counterpoint all its own. Where Pfahler celebrated the absolute, geometric, and rational rigor of form, this series softens the edges and makes room for an intuitive landscape of color and emotion.

IMPERIUM (Work in Progress)

In stark contrast to this are the six torsos and busts from the IMPERIUM series on display. The physical appearance of these works is characterized by a crude, primitive design. Whole or roughly cut loaves of Laibaud bread serve as the raw material, assembled using a naive assemblage technique. “Shaped in the oven”—a fundamental metaphor for life itself, which shapes us through energy and pressure—the soft dough has swollen and torn uncontrollably, forming deep, gaping scars in its solidified armor. The figures are a record of this existential deformation. They appear awkward, vulnerable, and searching for dignity and poise in their existence. Although the sculptures are to be cast in sterile aluminum for their final version, they are presented here in a temporary, high-gloss chrome skin. This reflective armor creates an immediate, almost ghostly echo of the Römer Museum in Weißenburg and the masks from the world-famous treasure trove. Whereas the ancient Roman ceremonial masks aspired to divine perfection and eternal protection, the contemporary chrome skin encapsulates human inadequacy. It is a compassionate, understanding gaze upon this flawed creation: the tenderness of the human soul, irrevocably trapped within an impersonal, technocratic shell. Between the flowing expanse of painterly metaphors and the painful.

Curated by Martina Tauber.

Photo credit: Michael Daiminger.