New special exhibition shows works by Gudrun Kemsa
"Floating Spaces" in the city museum
Gudrun Kemsa, Professor of "Moving Images and Photography" at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences in Krefeld, is one of the most important German photo and video artists of the present day. Last Sunday, the exhibition "Floating Spaces" opened at the Beckum City Museum, showing the artist's photographs and video installations.
After words of welcome from Stefan Hoffmann, Chairman of the Museum Association, and Mayor Michael Gerdhenrich, Professor Dr Rolf Sachsse introduced the exhibition. Gudrun Kemsa already devoted herself to photography as a teenager, but then went on to study sculpture as she was interested in exploring space and locations. This sculptural influence is still visible in her photographs today: large spaces, parks, squares, shop windows, streets and building facades are the artist's motifs.
And in the midst of it all, people are often seen as the protagonists who fill the "dead places" with life. Kemsa shows people in everyday life, but dispenses with a narrative moment. The people seem choreographed. The artist only presses the shutter release when the people in her photos form a tense constellation. The movement of people is a central motif in the artist's work.
In the artist's video works, Kemsa's second medium, the movements are visualised even more clearly and the motifs can be perceived as an incessantly flowing sequence of images.
The exhibition of works by the Düsseldorf artist can be seen at the Beckum City Museum until 17 May.