Exhibition Touch Down
by Michael Soltau

Exhibition by Michael Soltau

The Photography collection – Kummerow Castle presents a video installation in the cabinet for the first time. The special exhibition Touch down by Michael Soltau consists of a multimedia production that combines light, sound and space. For the recently retired professor of fine arts and visual media, the focus is on working with photography, video, installation and performance. The video installation “Touch Down”, which is shown at Kummerow Castle, consists of four photographic back projections of flying feathers on semi-transparent glass surfaces. They approach the picture surface in a slow-motion rhythm before they move away again after pausing for a brief moment.

*** The opening of the special exhibition Touch down will take place on Thursday, September 5th, 2019 at 6 p.m. ***

Dialogue between the artist Michael Soltau and Aileen Kunert from the Photography collection – Schloss Kummerow

Kummerow Castle: When I first saw your video installation, I immediately thought of a photograph brought to life. As is Touch down perceived by other viewers?

Michael Soltau: The installation was shown for the first time as part of the “PINK PONG” exhibition in Szczecin in 2010. There it was part of a series of rooms that were presented to the audience like a cabinet in the Villa Lentz. It is precisely in reacting to the respective spatial situation, in developing a dramaturgy of the rooms to be entered, the effect for the recipient is ensured. From attentive uncertainty to friendly sympathy, I have so far registered an open interest in the work.

Schloss Kummerow: The transitions between photography and moving images are becoming increasingly blurred. We already show some videos in the photographic collection. It was therefore a logical step for me to also use video art in the cabinet. How do you feel about the relationship between photography and video installation?

Michael Soltau: Since my intensive examination of the audiovisual media in the field of visual art during my studies in the 1970s, I was convinced from the start that the use of video technology in particular requires a different approach than the new medium now available to everyone as understand cheap film replacement. The opportunity to make sure of the present in the picture was a particular challenge. The sound was added as an additional design medium, and the spatial staging was downright absorbing. In my opinion, a visual artist is ultimately always interested in a picture. A filmmaker develops a script-like narrative with a plot. In the visual arts, this moment comes into play primarily in performance. Certainly today there are also transitional forms and penetrations that inspire each other, especially in the everyday world characterized by media.

The increasingly high-resolution video technologies have currently opened up a perspective that photography and video are approaching each other in terms of technical perfection and are almost equal to one another in terms of processing options. Thus, the minimally moving video image moves increasingly in the direction of the Still image of photography. This results in interesting new forms of expression in the exhibition context.

Biography Michael Soltau

1953 born in Oldenburg / Oldenburg
1974-1980 Studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart
1975-1977 Studied art history at the University of Stuttgart

Since 1983 Free artistic activity and teaching activity
1984-1994 Lecturer at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart
1990-1992 Lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Konstanz on Institute for Communication Design
1992-1997 Artistic-Scientific Assistant at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg
1996/97 Visiting professor at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt / M.

1997-2019 Professorship at the University of Greifswald / Caspar David Friedrich Institute (Fine arts, visual media and their didactics)

2002-2004 Member of the cultural advisory board of Ministry of Education, Science and Culture in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

2005/2006 Member of the European Commission for the Selection of Artistic Projects Culture 2000 Program / Visual Arts in Brussels

Michael Soltau lives and works in Leipzig and Greifswald.
www.michael-soltau.de