It is far too early for her to produce a “life review”, and especially not a final one. We would be misunderstanding Ursula Huth if we were to see the series of 65 little boxes and their content displayed in the exhibition as a concluding event. All this has nothing to do with bourgeois concepts of “twilight years” and reaching pensionable age. It is not a recapitulation of the achievements of a lifetime, and not a recounting of the passing of the years, even if many of the subjects in the boxes do reflect biographical details and artistic stations along the way.
What presents itself in the first instance primarily as the final account of an artist’s life, dissolves into a kaleidoscope of slivers of thoughts and memories of experiences and events – and the reaction to them. Since the life in question is that of an artist, it clearly concerns emotion and poetry beyond the written word. It expresses a very personal attitude to life, fed by relics of the past, things which have triggered something, which have “remained” although they were perhaps thought initially not to have been of particular importance. The backdrop is formed by something essential for any artist: the source of inspiration.
Ultimately it is concerned with what constitutes a life. In often playful form the artist reflects on things that are very different and highly diverse. It focuses in sketch-like allusions on life situations – even life-threatening ones; it addresses personal developments, changes in one’s personal worldview as a result of travel and the confrontation with other cultures and religious perceptions. It does not ignore the running battle of everyday life. At the same time the specifically artistic challenges become clear: the struggle with technology; the risk – and also the joy – of experimentation; the problems of subject choice; and, time and again, the effort to filter one’s own unique design out of the appearances of nature, its structure and its beauty.
The choice of material is of central significance here. For Ursula Huth glass has always been the most important starting point for the realisation of her ideas and visions – not because of its superficial charms and seductive beauty, but because of the qualities and opportunities for expression which only this medium offers. The exhibition shows us this very clearly. The transparency of the mostly colourless glass boxes not only creates spaces but also permits us to look inside. The interior of the cuboid bodies assumes many forms and becomes the true subject. Its appearance changes with the position of the viewer and his or her viewing angle; static bodies become dynamic, moving objects which react differently to light and shadow and which constantly change their colour and form as they overlap.
In spite of the unmistakably individual references the prime purpose of the installation is not a form of artistic navel-gazing. The boxes also talk back to us; they are an invitation to dialogue. In the examination of each of the containers and its contents, questions arise or opportunities are offered for the identification of our own experiences and feelings and ultimately our own lives.
The fascination of the objects is by no means exhausted by this, however. The determining factor here will be the unanswered questions, the puzzling, the unexplained and the inexplicable, perhaps even the mysterious and the magical, which the artist keeps for himself or herself and without which no real artwork can survive. Helmut Ricke
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