Exhibition: Berta Fischer

Berta Fischer (born in 1973) employs transparent materials such as thermo-plastic acrylic glass in various colours, thicknesses and sizes to carry on a subtle dialogue about the nature of form and light. The result of her work is reminiscent of shiny or reflecting high-tech materials and virtual drawings hovering in space in a circling movement. Beyond the force of gravity, her works make visible what is disordered, chaotic and unforeseeable.

In the light-flooded upper exhibition pavilion of Waldfrieden Sculpture Park, Berta Fischer is showing, among other things, an adaptation of one of her works that hovers in space like a cloud. Other works define the space rising up from the floor and the wall. Fischer works playfully with biomorphic, crystalline and flowing movements of form. Fastened to the wall almost invisibly, freely hovering in space or hanging from the ceiling, her works communicate a characteristic lightness.

Each sculpture comes about in a multi-stage process that ranges from CAD drawings via computer-controlled laser incisions through to forming by hand. In this way Fischer guides the viewer’s gaze to the material's properties, even though the forms which she makes of them can be deceptive. By patiently bending heated plates, those delicate folds arise that give the impression of suddenly frozen movements; simultaneously animated and unmoving, rigid and fragile. Although Fischer employs exclusively synthetic materials, her sculptures are reminiscent of a landscape made of dreamed-up natural forms. The path taken by Fischer's works here leads from the form to the form. Her sculptures show that form is nothing fixed but the possibility for change.

Berta Fischer lives in Berlin. She has exhibited at numerous international institutions, including the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt/Main, La Friche in Marseille, France, the Haus am Waldsee in Berlin, the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, U.S., the ZKM in Karlsruhe, the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zürich, Switzerland, the Oldenburger Kunstverein in Oldenburg and the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart. Her works are to be found in the collections of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Zürich, as well as in important private collections in North America and Europe.=