Studio: Wolfgang Ganter: Tiny Supernova

In the STUDIO Kunsthalle Mannheim presents current positions of contemporary art. The STUDIO invites artists for transdisciplinary experiments. In these temporary exhibitions visitors can see new works by international artists with surprising themes and interests.

Wolfgang Ganter's conceptual photographs are based on microscopic images of organic objects, biological processes and chemical reactions. They are assembled from thousands of individual photographs using the stacking and stitching technique.

For the photographs in the series WORKS IN PROGRESS, Ganter uses the metabolism of the bacterial cultures he has cultivated, which feed on the photographic gelatine of art-historical slides and colour negatives. The artist controls the decay process and photographs the result of chance. The images, which are subsequently enlarged many times, make the transformation of the photos and the beauty of their decay vivid and surprise with visual effects.

The series INNER VALUES IN OUTER SPACE shows (blow-up) photos of small, everyday (waste) products of the human body, such as a cut-off fingernail with splashes of paint, whose abstract form and size are reminiscent of cosmic motifs such as the moon.

In his latest group of works, MICROPAINTINGS, Ganter works in the laboratory with chemical reactions from liquids whose endogenous explosive power leads to astonishing, colourful compositions. These unusual, large-format photographs show in detail the richness of colour spectra that were previously only visible under a microscope. In this way, the artist connects microcosm and macrocosm through the medium of the technical image.

Curator: Dr. Sebastian Baden