CONDITION: PERMEABLE. Klara Hobza

The Kunsthalle Bielefeld is showing an exhibition dedicated to water in summer 2022. Based on her collection of the art of the the twentieth and 21st century, it follows the questions: What do we see when we look at the water? What themes, objects and contexts come to light when we turn our attention to water in art? In the exhibition, depictions of the sea, lakes, rivers and harbors are combined with works that use water as an artistic material and with more recent works that revolve around current debates. Some selected artistic interventions and lectures have been preparing the exhibition as part of a prologue since summer 2021.

In her artistic practice, Klara Hobza (*1975, lives in Berlin and Paris) deals with phenomena of the natural and animal world as well as the limits of human abilities in terms of perception and understanding, which she constantly explores in an aesthetic and playful way. Her work encompasses video, drawing, sculpture and performance. At the center of the presentation at the Kunsthalle is Hobza’s “Diving Through Europe” project, which was initiated in 2009 and continues to this day. The artist dives through the waterways of Europe in stages on a predetermined route, starting at the mouth of the Rhine in the North Sea and ending in the Black Sea. Hobza documents the individual stages of this journey with videos, supplemented by photographs, drawings and objects related to her experiences. Her view of the journey reflects anecdotally, critically and aesthetically the hidden historical, political, ecological, economic and also mythical aspects of the European (under)water world.

In a lecture on 23.2.2022 at 18.00, Klara Hobza will report on her transnational diving project “Diving Through Europe”, the documentation of which is the focus of the foyer exhibition. In addition to providing the background to this project, which is scheduled to run for 25 to 30 years, she also discusses other thematically related “concerns of immersion”, such as her works “Die grosse Basler Gipfelbergung”, “Animaloculomat” and “Das Ohr”.