Kunstpunkte
As part of the ‘KUNSTPUNKTE’ exhibition series, Wildbad Rothenburg o.d.T. offers a platform for contemporary artistic positions. The western staircase serves as a cabinet exhibition. At the same time, artistic interventions are deliberately placed in selected locations in the foyer area of the hotel.
The exhibitions begin after Easter of each year and are presented until Ash Wednesday of the following year wherever possible. The artists are selected by a panel of experts.
The third exhibition in the ‘KUNSTPUNKTE’ series with sculptures, objects and photographs by Munich artist Brigitte Schwacke has been taking place since 31 March 2024.
Sculpture, photo, drawing by Brigitte Schwacke in the Wildbad Rothenburg o.d.T.
The artist Brigitte Schwacke is a border crosser. Whether sculpture, photography or drawing, she always moves in the border areas of the individual genres.
With her works, she leaves the viewer in uncertainty, in limbo with the interfaces of these categories. Whether sculpture or three-dimensional drawing, object or installation, exclusion of space or formation of shape, the transitions are fluid, the categorisation remains open.
Brigitte Schwacke was born in Marl and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. She was a master student of Sir Eduardo Paolozzi and later assistant to Professor Christina Iglesias at the Chair of Free Sculpture. She lives and works in Munich.
In the exhibition in our hotel, it is possible to experience almost the entire spectrum of her creative world. The sensitive works are composed into the sophisticated architecture and enter into dialogue with it. Her works enable interior and exterior views, changes of perspective and open up new visual axes. At the interfaces of figuration and abstraction, the artist evokes the imagination of the viewer.
In her works, Brigitte Schwacke attempts to visualise the fact that we are constantly changing and with us the things and conditions in this world. She is concerned with recognising and enduring transience as a fact inherent in all things. With this in mind, she creates fragile, enchanting, often fleeting-looking pictures and sculptures, which are just the beginning.
Admission is free of charge.
Art Residency
The Wildbad Rothenburg o.d.T. ‘does’ something with its guests and visitors. The building and the neighbouring park are unique - the eventful history of the building, the impressive architecture, the location in the romantic Tauber Valley and the proximity to Rothenburg ob der Tauber open up new perspectives, sensitise the senses and unleash creativity.
From 2017 to 2024, Wildbad Rothenburg o.d.T. invited selected national and international artists to work creatively for a year as ‘artists in residence’ and be inspired by the ambience of the building and the surrounding park. The artists were selected by an independent, high-calibre jury.
The result was contemporary, experimental works of art that are unmistakable. They reflect the dynamics of the Wildbad's architecture, explore the ‘soul’ of the park and bridge the gap between past, present and future.
The artists' work was intensively documented and accompanied. Public and semi-public artist talks, workshop visits, symposia and art forums ensured that the art residency project was creatively networked with cooperation partners, those interested in culture, church and public institutions, art institutes, students and the media. After their completion, all works of the art residency remained in the Wildbad Rothenburg o.d.T. and are open to the public.
Artists and projects
Strömung
The floor sculpture made of pigmented and moulded concrete is located in the middle of the park's lawn and represents a fictitious excavation site - inspired by the ancient Terme di Nettuno (Baths of Neptune) in Ostia. The object shows a fragment of a mythological water creature winding along an ornament. The changing direction of the pattern, together with the coils of the sea monster, symbolises the movements of time and space as well as the fleeting existence within them. The narrative of the ephemeral is reinforced by the reference to a vanished building: living spaces and national borders, as well as language and culture, have always been in a constant state of flux. These constant changes are also reflected in archaeological or historical finds: they provide insights into the past, but their interpretation is also always dependent on the cultural and political interests of the present.
Durchsichtige Träger:innen – transparent carries
Alex Hojenski was the art residency artist in 2023. During the three months of her residency, she created the art object ‘Durchsichtige Träger:innen - transparent carriers’, which is installed in the trees above the bowling alley in the Wildbad Rothenburg o.d.T. park. The art object can be viewed from different angles and levels: from the side, from below and also from above.
Paradise now
Arianna Moroder's art object is expressed in two installations: 16 square metal plates, driven over paving stones of varying thickness, are sewn together like pieces of fabric and attached to the ceiling of the central building of the arcade hall. Depending on the sunlight, they reflect the movement of the water and thus the constant flow of time and life. A sundial is attached to the bridge railing downstream, showing time only as a shadow cast on the water. A millstone from the Rothenburg o.d.T. wild baths hangs as an anchor from the clock in the Tauber. Opposite it, stones from South Tyrol symbolise the spatial movement of Italy and Germany. Symbols on the gilded arch of the sundial symbolise the trades involved in this installation.
Growing on suspended mythologies
The fifth work of art at Wildbad Rothenburg o.d.T. is a towering scaffold that at first glance conjures up associations with a ‘rotary dryer’ or a ‘Sputnik rocket’. It consists of grey public transport support poles, partially encased in flesh-coloured 3D-printed shapes and connected with vein-like red cables. The aim is to depict the coexistence of organic-looking and synthetic materials as well as the fragility of life and the associated process of change and decay - and man's attempt to halt this process through medical developments. Zuber thus takes up the theme of the founder of the Wildbad, Friedrich Hessing, who is regarded as a pioneer of orthopaedics.
Blick in den Atem der Welt
Self-luminous letters between the trees in the forest. Positioned at various points in a path, they enter into a relationship with each other. They form a sentence: Look into the breath of the world. They create an atmospheric space, offering viewers the opportunity to pause, to perceive. The lettering was developed by the Breathe Earth Collective in a public text workshop together with the local population. By creating concrete experiential spaces, the artists make global issues such as climate change tangible to the senses.
Das […] Element
The sculpture - a site-specific work with a quadraphonic sound and readymade - is dedicated to the theme of ‘water’ as an essential element of life and a dried-up healing spring in the park. It refers freely to the history of the Wildbad as a former spa hotel and engages in a dialogue with the surroundings. At the same time, the artwork opens up ‘inner landscapes’. Here, nature, memory, place, poetry and fiction are interwoven and transformed. Evoked by the intimacy of voice, sound and place.
Kubus neben der Tauber
A grey cube on the banks of the Tauber. In its material composition and formal simplicity, it stands in the way of the picturesque landscape and Wildbad architecture. It also seems to break with the artist's fragile spatial drawings, whose objects - ‘collected’ organic material - are transformed into a new state in the charcoal kiln. While this process remains invisible to the viewer here, the cube on the Tauber depicts it: the transformation of a large old tree moulds its interior.
Rast auf der Flucht vor der Auseinandersetzung mit der Abgefucktheit des Ist-Zustands
A group of tourists among trees and undergrowth. Eleven figures, lifelike, seemingly frozen in shock. Stranded. Their facial expressions, gestures, clothing and accessories tell of different affiliations, longings and hopes. Have they reached the end of their journey, or are they just pausing: disillusioned, broken, lost? Böhler & Orendt set associations free. And take up themes of our time.
