Ausstellungansicht „Insel im Marta“ mit: Robert Barta, Sensing the wave, 2022, interaktive Installation, Metall, Holz, Jeans, Mechanik, Courtesy Sebastian Fath Contemporary und Marta Herford © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022

The Island at Marta
An communicative-artistic concept
since 2020

The “Island at Marta” is a special place at the centre of the museum. A space for encounter and for creative exploration. Here the visitors can become active themselves, learn something about the themes of the exhibitions and the Gehry architecture or just spend some time.

The room is a cooperation between an artist, the education and training department and the curator team.

Robert Barta

Czech-German artist was born in 1975 in Prague, and lives and works in Berlin and in Frankfurt am Main. He studied from 1998 to 2005 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and from 2002 to 2003 at the San Francisco Art Institute. His work “Neverendingstory” was installed within the framework of the exhibition project “Marta Open Air” (16.05.2021 – 03.10.2021) on the Marta Plaza, and has been in the Collection Marta as a permanent loan since 2021.

Accompanying the exhibition “Pedro Reyes: Sociatry – With a stage for Lina Bo Bardi”, Robert Barta built a walk-in installation for the “Island at Marta”. In his work “Sensing the wave” (2022) he playfully deals with movement and unusual perspectives. In doing so, he refers to central features of the curved architecture of the museum. The three objects distributed in the room resemble oversized seesaws that are equipped with softly lined jeans. Upon entering the swaying levels, visitors become performers. Every physical action has an effect on the movement of the objects and also changes the perception of the exhibition space.

Adrien Tirtiaux

Adrien Tirtiaux was the first artist to conceive the “Island at Marta”. The Belgian artist was born in 1980 in Brussels and today lives in Antwerp. Audacious structures and radical space interventions characterize his artistic oeuvre. From 1998 to 2003 he studied architecture at the Catholic University of Louvain-La-Neuve in Belgium and, from 2003 to 2008, sculpture and performance at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Tirtiaux had his first encounter with the Museum Marta Herford in 2017 within the framework of the exhibition “Revolution in red-yellow-blue”.

For every phase of the “Island at Marta” the artist developed a cartoon drawing that recalls the cover of “The Adventures of Tintin” comic series. The figures from the pen of the Belgian cartoonist Hergé are an important source of inspiration for Tirtiaux, also for other works. By quoting the clear, linear style of the cartoonist, and transferring it to his own work, he becomes part of the cosmos of heroes himself.

On a pedestal resembling an island it was possible to investigate the materials glass and concrete, and explore their differences and their similarities. In supervised workshops, visitors were also able to mix and cast concrete. Somewhere between research lab, construction site and holiday paradise, a room was created to spend time, read, discuss and join in.

For the autumn and winter exhibition, the “Island at Marta” had been transformed into a darkroom: the podium was raised in order to shade the roof windows. The concrete pillars cast by the visitors were used as bearing columns for this. On a rail landscape at the centre of the room were projectors throwing images on the walls. Visitors could participate actively in the drawing to create a joint work of art. All in the style of Saul Steinberg’s “The Line”, the picture motifs developed from a horizontal line that connects all.

The room has been transformed into a sewing workshop. After the visitors to the previous exhibitions have poured the concrete columns and drawn the panorama of figures on the walls, they can now work with textiles, sew, cut, weave and draw here. Or you can go on stage and try on items of clothing, for example, that have been created in workshops with various artists and designers.

Dank

Förderer „Insel im Marta“

Marta partners
Many thanks to the Marta Herford Corporate Partners and Corporate Premium Partners as well as the Marta Fund for New Art for their ongoing support of our program.