Artist talk – Ben Greber in conversation with Raimund Stecker and Charles Wennig

Ben Greber's exhibition is cryptic. And that is a good thing. Because art is art and not entertainment. Thoughts are rolled around in it, back and forth, back and forth... Light is brought into darkness and darkened is brightness. All human moods are present.

"... the goal of art", as the director Andrei Tarkowsky once put it, "is to prepare man for his death, to make him affected in his deepest inner being. When man encounters a masterpiece, he begins to hear within himself that voice which also inspired the artist."

If we go to Ben Greber's exhibition conditioned in this way, we also go on a Sunday afternoon less to a diverting coffee drink with cake and subsequent Spritz, but (at least first) to an existentialist meeting, where rum, cognac, vodka, Gitanes and Gauloises are already standing and lying on the table.

Through Ben Greber, the Konschthal Esch has become a theater stage on which his works, like actors, tell of what their ancestors and primeval ancestors experienced!

Raimund Stecker - art lover, art historian, critic, publicist, curator, former bookbinder and museum director - is a professor of art studies at the HBK Essen (Campus Wuppertal). He lives in Düsseldorf. Now for the second time - after Gregor Schneider - he has written the accompanying book to Ben Greber's exhibition.

Ben Greber was born in 1979 in Halle (D) and studied from 2000 - 2008 at the Kunstakademie Münster with Katharina Fritsch and Ayse Erkmen. Since then, he lives and works in Berlin and Eberswalde. His works have been shown at the Museum Marta, Herford (D), LWL Museum, Münster (D), Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen (D), Qingdao Sculpture Museum (CHN), Viafarini, Milan (I), 515 Los Angeles (USA) and the Triennale Kleinplastik in Fellbach (D).

Free of charge | Subject to availability | Booking required.