„The rain is at a pleasant temperature" says
a slim young woman to a man on the
way into an underground station. He doesn't answer,
just moves on, and she also makes her way slowly
down into the station and turns to the next man: "Are
you listening? The rain is at a pleasant temperature." Although a statement like this could be the classic
opening to a casual conversation at a party – on
exactly the same lines as "Lovely weather we're
having" –, it still seems to come out of the blue and
sounds strangely out of place in the middle of a city
street - especially when it is constantly repeated.
It is an invitation to make conversation, a plea for communication, but just a little on the wrong side of
the unwritten rules of public life; perhaps desperate,
perhaps a little mad, but in any case threatening and
confusing because it is so direct.
Martin Walde confronts these strange facets of everyday
life with the same amazement and awkwardness
as most other people: you look away, try to pretend
it isn't happening, hurry on. But hours later, once he
has got home, scenes like these catch Walde up again,
and the protagonists come back to life in his drawings.
Here reality and fantasy meet, memory and speculation,
photograph and sketch. Martin Walde chose this
statement by the lonely woman going into the underground
station as the title for his exhibition at the
Städtische Galerie Nordhorn, and he also used it for
the central, expansive installation made up of light,
dancing awnings in the large exhibition pavilion.
And it was not a random choice: this sentence actually
sums up the essential motifs of his projects.– Communication as a challenge. An exhibition is
always a dialogue. Visitors are being introduced to a
rich, sometimes complex world of images and ideas.
But when going into an exhibition, as a rule you don't
know exactly what to expect, even though you may
have had some preliminary information. The exhibits
are just as likely to speak to visitors out of the blue
as that woman wandering through the underground
tunnels. And even if – especially with a view to the
artistic developments of recent years – it might
sound a little theatrical or idealistic - artists, and
Martin Walde in particular, also badly want to use
their work to make contact with the public, to launch
a dialogue stubbornly, and to provoke a reaction
(which is not necessarily always tangible).Martin Walde pushes this confrontation between
artist, exhibition venue, work and the public as far as
he can by staging his exhibitions as definitely open
situations: a range of items is on offer, but there are
no rules or fixed guidelines. Although many of his
works are extremely fragile, and demand a careful,
though physical, approach, he takes up no position in
relation to whether and how exhibits should be kept
safe, ...
(contined >>>)
