MEGAYAPROJECT

Corium (2021) as part of Into Nature. Kunsthalle Lingen (D) & Bargerveen (NL)

translate to english

The exhibition is part of the “Into Nature - New Energy” biennial in Bargerveen, the Netherlands

From July 30 to October 24, 2021, the artist Veit Laurent Kurz will be creating an installation and video film specially designed for the water tower of the Kunsthalle Lingen as part of the Dutch biennial “Into Nature - New Energy”. The biennial has been organized and realized for the third time since 2016 by artistic director Hans den Hartog Jager in collaboration with curator Michiel van der Kaaij. The concept consists of an artistically formulated reflection of the Bargerveen nature reserve in the province of Drenthe in the Netherlands. This is the only remaining raised bog area in Holland, whose history is steeped in various forms of energy: historical energy, vanished energy, invisible energy, controversial energy and new energy. Around three hundred bird species inhabit the area, forty dragonfly species, thirty butterfly species and almost nine hundred moth species.

More importantly for the importance of the area, however, the Bargerveen is now a crucial part of the province's energy landscape - a landscape that owes its existence in part to the energy it produces. Just across the border in Germany, dozens of tall windmills are clearly visible from the moors. And in Lingen, also just over the border, there is a nuclear power plant. All these different types of energy production are still associated with dilemmas. What do they mean for the landscape? And why do the people who live there bear the burden of this energy production, but feel that they have relatively little of it themselves? The consequences of this tension are becoming increasingly visible. The exhibition “Into Nature - New Energy” aims to bring new energy into the Bargerveen and to reflect on the way in which it is generated. The artworks on display shed light on the history of this region and highlight the social impact of energy. Another venue of the Biennale is the water tower of the Kunsthalle Lingen with an artwork by Veit Laurent Kurz.

Veit Laurent Kurz (born 1985 in Erbach, lives in New York and Berlin) studied fine arts at the Städelschule Academy of Fine Arts in Frankfurt am Main. He has presented his artistic work in solo exhibitions at the Kunstverein Nürnberg, the Whitney Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst, among others, and has taken part in group exhibitions including “Made in Germany 3” at the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hanover, the Halle für Kunst in Lüneburg and the Kunstverein in Dortmund.

His installation in the water tower of the Kunsthalle Lingen complements the volcanoes realized by Veit Laurent Kurz in the Bargerveen. With its title “CORIUM”, the work refers to the molten material that is produced in a nuclear reactor during a nuclear meltdown. In both rooms, documents about lava in the form of elephant feet speak of this. Although everything looks lived-in and bears witness to a working and living situation, no one is present. Downstairs someone seems to have been experimenting with liquids, upstairs someone has been sleeping, a television is on, but no one is watching. Two chained-up creatures look like pets that seem to be kept by an owner. Who lives here and what circumstances have accompanied their lives? Documents, pictures and models point to nuclear reactors and tell us about Chernobyl; we remember 1986, when a devastating accident took place there. The atmosphere in the tower is as oppressive as it is fascinating and invites us to imagine stories, fables or fairy tales about possible people or beings living here who take “anti-depressants” and “anti-idiotics” in order to survive. Many things seem possible, but nothing can be clearly put together by circumstantial evidence to form a plausible and coherent interpretation; in the end, the puzzle of various pieces does not result in a concrete picture. Is it perhaps the artist himself or does everything point to a terrible event that happened to the inhabitant?