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marian@ich.ms
The birth of the cool was grey
In recent years, architecture enthusiasts, urban planners, historians and flâneurs have discovered the visionary grandeur of Brutalist buildings. At last. During his studies, David Varnhold stood in the middle of the gigantic concrete city of the Ruhr University Bochum and was fascinated by the will to design, the search for functional solutions and the fuck-you attitude that this new architecture hurled at the old, conservative era in order to find new forms for a bright future.
Image gallery
Basilica santuario Madonna delle Lacrime - Siracusa - V
Basilica santuario Madonna
Basilica santuario Madonna - IV
Maria Regina Martyrum - Berlin
And so, for 30 years, David Varnhold has been immersing himself in the world of this ‘wild, natural and primitive’ (Le Corbusier) architectural language, both in terms of architectural history and photography. Particularly in the social housing of the 1950s to 1970s and in the public buildings of this period, the focus was not on capitalist utilisation, as it is today, but on the ideal of a new, egalitarian, enlightened society. Examples include the buildings by Aldo Loris Rossi in Naples and the Hansa neighbourhood in Berlin.
What is not yet sufficiently appreciated is how playful, free in form and strikingly cool many of these bold buildings appear. Did Miles Davis unknowingly write the soundtrack to the architectural revolution in 1957?
And then the colours! This sensual combination of material, grandiose form and colour, cast in concrete, is what David Varnhold wants to reveal to us with his photographs.
He takes the forms and colours he finds and uses his pictorial fantasies to create an appreciation of these utopias for a better society, their beauty and their experimental power.
BIOGRAPHY
Growing up in Bochum behind a steelworks, next to a former colliery and on the football pitches of the Ruhr region. Educated by a communicative family, studied history and art history at a university made of pure concrete and strolled through the cities of the world. Journalist. Copywriter. Falls in love with Berlin, Italy, architecture and photography. Moves to Berlin and Rome. Photographs architecture and founds several galleries.
Additional information
Vernissage: Friday, 02.08.2024, 18.00 to 22.00 / Finissage: Wednesday, 14.08.2024, 18.00 to 20.00 /
Participating artists
David Varnhold
Dates
August 2024
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