INTERGALAXY – Felix Baltzer

Düsseldorf based sculptor Felix Baltzer explores rendering three-dimensionality visible in two dimensions — themes range from gravity, weightlessness, to liberation from space and time.

His recent exhibition ‘Intergalaxy’ at ‘the pool’ suggests a representation of the invisible. Presenting new sculptures and large-format cyanotypes, the site specific installation sees three groups of work interplay with the sun, the space and one another.

Cyanotypes are an early form of photography using iron salts producing an image in Prussian blue. In ‘the pool’ — a former swimming pool setting — sunlight, captured shadows and the prints’ characteristic water-like blue hue are the defining features. The large cyanotypes show grids, patterns, and free-floating objects that specially created by Baltzer.

The organic effect of the large scale amorphous sculptures – carved out of glued structural and hollow-body panels – contrasts their industrial source material.

Titles such as “Hamon” or “Mizushimi,” (“water stains” or “water rings”), reflect the Japanese aesthetics and refer to the representation of nature in abstract form. The filigree bronze tree sculptures see formative elements of nature such as wind and growth permanently frozen by the casting process — and yet they appear alive.

With its unique spatial character, the exhibition space “the pool” presented an ideal setting for the objects- and light installations of the artist who studied as master student under Tony Cragg at the Düsseldorf art academy. Previous installations of Baltzer’s ‘liquid forms in austere spaces’ include the Letzigraben outdoor swimming pool in Zurich designed by Max Frisch, the cashier’s hall of the Stadtsparkasse Wuppertal designed by Paul Schneider-Esleben in 1973 and the MBEIM (NRW State Representation) in Berlin.

Max Christian Graeff