The sea establishes diverse links, spanning continents and connecting people from many nations--and also (indirectly) institutions. This also applies to the Museum Kunst der Westkste in Alkersum on Fhr and the Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung in Berlin, who had already presented a joint exhibition in 2014 and have now once again collaborated on the project SEA PIECES facts and fiction. The group of contemporary 21st-century works brought together by Harald F. Theiss aims to call into question inherited ideas about the sea and traditional images of seascapes. Today, the sea is no longer just a background for the projection of longings for freedom, getting away, and holidays. In a period of climate change as well as migration routes traversing the Mediterranean to Europe, political, social, and cultural factors have taken on such dimensions that a radical change in our present ideas of the sea can be recognised. The innocent eye's gaze upon the beauty of a peaceful seascape and the Romantic idealisation of the sea's dangers, which not very long ago were still compellingly relevant, have made way for artistic positions that look behind the facade of the supposedly idyllic surface. Contemporary SEA PIECES cover a broad spectrum within the interpretive space between facts and fiction.
Dr. Christiane Stahl: Since 2002 Head of the Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung Kln, 2005 Graduation about Alfred Ehrhardts early photographic work. Afterwards lectures and publications on contemporary photography. Harald F. Theiss M. A.: art historian, curator, writer. He is in charge of private art collectiont, works increasingly as curator and takes care of art in architecture competitions. Lately he is writing texts for artists. Prof. Dr. Ulrike Wolff-Thomsen: Director of the Museum Kunst der Westkste, Alkersum/Fhr; Professor for Art History at the Christian-Albrechts-Universitt Kiel; editor of different exhibition catalogues.
