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The Arts Intel Report

Claudia Wieser: Lobby

Sept 4 – Oct 2, 2020
Poststraße 2-3, 40213 Düsseldorf, Germany

The German term Gesamtkunstwerk, which roughly translates as “total work of art,” was a favorite of the composer Richard Wagner. In his mid-19th-century theoretical writings, he argued that Greek tragedy embodied an immaculate unity between word, music, and dance, a oneness to which modern artists should aspire. This ideal of oneness fell out of fashion in the postmodern era, but Claudia Weiser’s latest show—an installation made of wooden sculpture, mirrored walls, tiled surfaces, and colored panels—aims for extreme harmonization between mediums. Drawing from interior design, film, and theater sets, Weiser’s kaleidoscopic immersion draws viewers into a dreamy world of Euclidean curves and eclipses, isosceles triangles that pinwheel in fractal purity. —C.J.F.