Karina Smigla-Bobinski – “I am talking about a complex world.”

MORNING STAR (ill. 14), 2013 developed for the international exhibition “gast.freund.schaft – sculpture Europe” in Trier is surprising for its precise construction: the spherical sculpture consists of hundreds of arrows surrounding the “black hole” in a field of gravitation in the centre. The “shafts” (a pun on part of the German title) of the arrows link the deadly tips on one end of the arrow with the soft feathers on the other, two aspects of hospitality (“Gast.freund.schaft”“= guest.friend.ship or hospitality), that might be experienced in various attitudes both at home and abroad. The title of the work is equally ambivalent: it is not only another name for the planet Venus but was also a deadly war weapon in the Middle Ages.

The selection of works displayed here show that Karina Smigla-Bobinski is not fixed to any particular art form. Alongside classical room installations, she works with videos, stage shows, in specific situations and different places, with internet projects, installations in public spaces, and sound, not forgetting electronic and kinetic experiments. For her, technological and philosophical frames of reference are not ends in themselves but general means to present themes in an artistic manner. In 2013 she spoke about this in an interview with Ida Hirsenfelder: “For me the technical solutions are never only formal. […] When I use technical things, I like to use them in a very clear way. I need to use a simple language, because I am talking about a complex world.”

Since 2005 she has been teaching and giving guest lectures and workshops in universities and cultural organisations around the world. Since 2013 she has been a member of DiBari Innovation Design in Florida (USA), a design studio, in which architects, artists and designers can work together on visions of future cities. At the end of 2015 she will work as Artist in Residence in the centre for interdisciplinary research at the University of Bielefeld, where she will cooperate with academics from different disciplines all over the world to research the “ethics of copying” and the” genetic and social causes of life opportunities”. The results will be shown in an exhibition.

Axel Feuß, September 2015

Sources:

The artist’s home page and an archive of images and texts: smigla-bobinski.com; smigla-bobinski.tumblr.com; flickr.com/photos/66595551@N04.

Texts by:

• Antje Schmelcher: Dinner for everyone, Die Welt; 1.8.2000
• Tatjana Schönwälder-Kuntze, 2004
• Cornelia Kleÿboldt, 2005
• Sandra Luzina: Angst im Gepäck, Der Tagesspiegel,. 12.9.2006
• Hanne Weskott, 2008
• Thomas R. Huber, 2004; 2005; 2013; 2014
• Mike Stubbs, 2013; an interview conducted by Ida Hirsenfelder, 2013
• An interview by Catherine Wong, in: Oversize. The mega art and installations, Hong Kong 2013, as well as texts and information provided by the artist.