Room text: Mischa Kuball (*1959, Germany)

Mischa Kuball  has been working with light as an artistic medium since the 1970s. His work featuring the words “my absence is your presence” is displayed on the façade of the Kunsthalle. One half of the sentence faces the sculpture park, the other half faces the street with the main entrance. Due to this corner position, the lettering can hardly be read completely at once. This creates a tension between absence and presence that can be physically and immediately experienced in the urban space.

Through the connection of urban space, architecture, and perception, light is not only used as an aesthetic means. It is also a sign for questions of visibility and social space. Thus, “my absence is your presence” opens up transitional zones between what appears and what remains hidden—and makes light a medium of encounter and confrontation in public space.