Artist Talk with Sebastian Gräfe

14.03.2013

Although the concepts, production methods, and media used by Sebastian Gräfe (*1976) are highly diverse, themes of nature and the weather are obviously the focus of his interest. In a poetic and playful manner he manages to direct our attention to often-overlooked natural phenomena. Gräfe hiked for two weeks, following the clouds in the skies over Schwäbisch Gmünd; he constructed a “wind bicycle,” which can be used to stay in one place, and he carried a ghetto blaster through Berlin, which played the sound of chirping birds. With works defined by a minimal aesthetic, he questions the perceptual processes and experiences of the viewer, pointing to our distorted understanding of nature in the western world.

After studying at Braunschweig University of the Arts he was awarded the annual fellowship of the State of Niedersachsen, among other honors. He developed his work on view in the current exhibition “Scattered Showers – Forms of Weather” at the Kunstverein while in Frankfurt as a resident of the Deutsche Börse Residency Program.