January 31, 2013, 7 p.m. (German)

The artist talks about the conceptual oeuvre he has created since the 1970s, which ranges from critical studies of media to issues of representation and large-format wall paintings. Ephemeral media of reproduction such as artist’s books, invitations, posters, and editions have proven especially suitable to Caramelle’s conceptual approach and constitute a major group of works within his oeuvre. In 1974, he started experimenting with the medium of video, examining the fusion of real and represented space in a series of video performances documented in the Video Landscapes. The photographs on display in the exhibition take on the television screen quite directly, using it as a frame for explorations that reveal its physical limitations, the semblance of its objectivity, and its illusive character. “Because reality is obscured by the monitor, I try to render this interrupted visual experience visible again or to supplement it. Video technology is used here not to replay action but simply to produce freeze-frames. Supplements to, or alienations of, interrupted reality…” (Ernst Caramelle)

Ernst Caramelle was born in 1952 in Hall in Tyrol, Austria. From 1970 to 1976 he attended the University of Applied Art in Vienna and was a Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT from 1974 through 1975. In 1981, he started teaching at the Städelschule in Frankfurt on the Main, continuing 1986 till 1990 at the University of Applied Art in Vienna, as well as at other international schools. Since 1994, he has been a professor at the Karlsruhe Art Academy, where he also became dean in 2012. Important solo shows took place amongst others at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2012), at Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, Austria (2008), at the Secession (1993), the National Gallery, Berlin (1990), or the Kunsthalle Bern (1986). He lives in Frankfurt on the Main, Karlsruhe, and New York.

Free admission