Modernism is celebrating milestone birthdays and remains an object of fascination. Two artists, based in Berlin, have joined in rapport to exhibit their contributions to the ongoing history of the modern era at the Dresden Kulturpalast. They play with architectural space, deconstructing it and recombining it in new ways, as a dynamic collage or as an image. They give an account of architecture and their time and, in so doing, discover forms and patterns, recurrence and deviation.
Alexa Kreissl is concerned with the built environment itself, deconstructing the architects’ creations. With narrow metal or wooden rods, she delineates spaces which are permeable and airy, under tension or balanced.
Tim Trantenroth examines the aesthetics of series. He continuously transfers elements of the built environment into built images. The structures and surface patterns of late modernism from both East and West Germany are reproduced on transparent backgrounds. His work touches upon not only the recently passed era, but also fundamental questions about the design relationship between space and image, between surface and depth.
Rapport is the first publication by the Center for Building Culture Saxony (ZfBK), which was opened in 2017 in the renovated Dresden Kulturpalast, itself one of the earliest examples of East German modernism.