HEIKE
BARANOWSKY

Barometer (iiii), Kunsthalle Nürnberg, 2013

 

4-channel video installation, 160 x 300 cm each, 35:00 min loop, 4-channel stereo sound.

Part of Time Traps | Kunsthalle Nürnberg | April 15 – June 16 2013

 

Barometer was made in the low pressure chamber of the training centre BLZ Kienbaum in Brandenburg, which was built in the former GDR. Here, the conditions of high altitude training were simulated for to athletes in the low pressure chamber. Although it was constructed in the late 1970s and closed down after the fall of the Wall it still functions perfectly. The interior with its forceful historical encoding lends a rather ghostly atmosphere to the space. Baranowsky brings the space back to life in her film alternating between documentation and animation: weather balloons filled with a mixture of helium and air float through the hall and show the change in pressure by sinking and rising; the old sports equipment is moved as if by spirit hands.

 

Barometer (iiii) presents the events in the training centre on four projection frames with the aid of various recordings. Three times, Baranowsky filmed how the balloons reacted under pressure. This series of experiments led to similar results in each case. These recordings are shown simultaneously; the events running parallel, synchronously and asynchronously. The viewer is surrounded by the images of the events – as they could have taken place. (Daniel Schreiber)

 

 

 

With 15 representative works from the last 15 years, the exhibition Time Traps at Kunsthalle Nürnberg provided the most comprehensive insight to date into the complex oeuvre of Heike Baranowsky. Individual works that have long been known internationally, such as PASSAGE I (Schiff), 1998, or Schwimmerin (1:24), 2000, were placed in the context of her consistent oeuvre for the first time in this presentation. At the same time, more recent installations such as Racetrack, 2010, and the four-part video installation Barometer (III), 2013, created by Heike Baranowsky especially for the exhibition in Nuremberg and subsequently at the Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, were also on view.

 

A major catalog (German/English) was published for the exhibition by Verlag für moderne Kunst Nuremberg with around 80 images and text contributions by Christoph Cox, Joanna Lowry, and Jan Verwoert. With the annotated catalog written by Daniel Schreiber, the publication offers a comprehensive overview of Heike Baranowsky’s work and is published jointly by Kunsthalle Nürnberg and LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz. *

 

 

 

* KunstKulturQuartier (2013). Heike Baranowsky. Time Traps.
https://www.kunstkulturquartier.de/news-detail/blog/18?cHash=c30a51d2cebdf20b3f086a6ea4d1f851