POLARRAUM

OLIVIA BERCKEMEYER 

LET´S DANCE

22.02. - 22.03.24

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...is a mirror dance floor armed with porcelain shoes belonging to fellow artist friends, this studio shoes accompany their significant ways . The shoes were firstly waxed in order to be able to create plaster molds. These were effused with porcelain, burned, enameled and once again burned at a temperature of 1250 grades. Through this process, the shoes become more abstract, as they shrink with 30% and, optically, become similar to child shoes. In addition, they look as if there is an invisible foot in them - the person becomes a spirit, the shoe remains matter and shell at the same time.

Since the ancient Greeks, shoes are an inexhaustible theme – for example, Apollo and Aphrodite’s sandals or Albrecht Dürer’s shoe studies. For Dürer, the shoe/foot stands as an instrument of the artist who calculates proportions and distances. For Jean- Francois Millet and Vincent Van Gogh, the shoe becomes a motif acknowledging the simple things. Van Gogh painted with so much attention a pair of farmer shoes, as if he painted a portrait. The shoe is immortalized and symbolizes both Dürer's and Van Gogh's own identity. This is also the case for my Porcelain Shoe Serie, as it reflects the presence and, at the same time, the absence of the artists, becoming the person who wore it.

The shoes also refer to Andy Warhol’s Dance Diagram, as they are mostly black and white, each pair for itself representing dance steps. For me, the work speaks about how we are all on the same floor (the Earth and the art world) dancing and how each takes their own steps and leaves their traces; also, in terms of the ecological footprint.

We all dance around the world, we live and disappear again, we seek harmony with ourselves and the world, the Ying & Yang accompanies us.

"Let's Dance" (David Bowie)

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Shoes belonging to:

Anselm Reyle, Andrea Pichl, Antje Blumenstein, Alicja Kwade, Axel Geis, Berta Fischer, Bernhard Martin, Chistian Jankowski, Dirk Bell, Erik Schmidt, Frank Nitsche, Friedrich, Georg, Gregor Hildebrandt, Hans Krestel, Hansa Wisskirchen, Hermann, Henning Straßburger, Horatio, Lothar Hempel, Isa Melsheimer, Lars Teichmann, Lisa Junghanß, Manfred Peckl, Mic Goerres, Olivia Berckemeyer, Oska Gutheil, Peter Welz, Philip Grözinger, Saâdane Afif, Stephanie Kloss, Svenja Kreh, Thierry Buchard, Tine Furler, Thomas Scheibitz, Thomas Zipp, Thomas Zitzwitz

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