Ute Waldhausen | Hekla Kollmar
Empty Doubts | In Each Pocket, I Carry a Mirror
24.01. – 02.02.2025
Vernissage Friday 24 January at 6pm
Finissage 2 February with live performance and readings
HilbertRaum presents two parallel solo exhibitions by Berlin based Ute Waldhausen and Reykjavik based Hekla Kollmar. Both artists work transient installations and intuitive methods, mixing and remixing found materials, sculpture and performance. While both are rooted in time-based art, sound and texts, they are in varied stages of honing their visual language. For the occasion of the exhibitions, they enter in a collaboration with an artist publication in a limited edition available in the gallery. The book contains images and texts from both artists, with layout by Christin Albert. For the finissage on 2 February, the artists will do live performance and readings.
Invited by Gunnhildur Hauksdottir.
With Empty Doubts Waldhausen stages a spatial installation wherein she explores the state of stagnation. Stagnation as something to look at and listen to, to endure, or take as a concealed movement. The installation describes a shifted form of communication. This [exhibition] is the place where the standstill takes its course. The letters of the newspaper have slipped onto the pavement and the place is teeming with devious and speechless languages. The wings are on, this once was a cage.
In Each Pocket, I Carry a Mirror, tells of intimacy with the immediate environment of Neukölln. Kollmar takes the role of a spy, observing the world closely, often through a lens of poetics and romance. Her assembly of works embrace the absurd, kitsch, and humorous, while grounding themselves in precious and intimate moments. The works safekeep the memories of these moments, while also carrying future moments of connection, yet to be realised.
Ute Waldhausen is from the GDR Harz region and works as a spatial installation and performance artist, exploring body articulations. She has lived and worked in Berlin, London and the mountains since 1992. Among places where her performances have been shown are the Forum Expanded section of the Berlin International Film Festival, the NNOI Festival Zernikow and Café OTO, London. She produces for radio and is part of the musical project Parabelles.
Hekla Kollmar is an Icelandic-German visual artist based in Reykjavík. Her works primarily take the form of sculptures though her process integrates poetry, performance, photography, and sound. Kollmar’s background in classical music informs her practice of deep listening to the material world, which she then transmutes into tangible forms. In Each Pocket, I Carry a Mirror is her first solo exhibition outside of Iceland.