A tangle of kitschy hope—Friday

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Admittedly, I am not neutral when it comes to the exhibition of crocheted corals that has just opened in beautiful Baden-Baden. Because when I visited the white Frieder Burda Museum that had fallen into the park, the charming man at the cash desk quite naturally asked if I was entitled to the student discount. And this seemingly casual question came at just the right time just four days after my 40th birthday. Not quite dead yet! I celebrated inwardly and thought everything was beautiful. If you now think: Annoying, typical woman, flirting with her age so self-centeredly here, in a text that is supposed to be about art, then you might also think about this exhibition: crocheting? This handwork is supposed to be art? And so it’s not a bad start.

Because right, in the exhibition Coral value and change, which will be on display in this museum until June 2022, stretches out in all directions. Sometimes fluffy, sometimes gnarled, sometimes full, sometimes hollow, the possibilities of hyperbolic geometry are celebrated through interconnected woolen stitches.

The sisters Margaret and Christine Wertheim – originally from Australia – have put together a huge coral reef. Insanely large arranged on islands. crocheted And they are reminiscent of a mixture of the colorful Fraggles dolls by Jim Henson and Haute Couture by Sonia Rykiel. As colorful as corals only look when they’re still alive, which is becoming increasingly rare: because of global warming.

“Crazy!” say the viewers, and: “That’s a lot of work!” The coral formations are only possible because it’s a cooperative installation. That means over 4,000 people took part in the artwork Satellite Reef, which is on display on the top floor of the museum, and sent in over 40,000 pieces of coral. The exhibition is also a tribute to traditional handicrafts. A technique that women in particular have mastered all over the world, but which is rarely considered art.

Some of the letters I sent are hanging on the wall next to it, some with photos of grannies crocheting in wheelchairs or on the edge of a bed. Mrs. Bissinger from Freiburg crocheted a coral for each year of life. Unfortunately, she did not write how many. Nonna Stolle is over 93 and crocheted for her granddaughter. And class 5c from Grünheide hopes that there will be a lot about this in the media Satellite Reef is reported because they are shocked at “what is happening to the coral reefs of our world.” A woman who works in oncology also sent something to the museum, a turtle made out of IV and syringe caps, to draw attention to how much “lifesaving waste is generated”. Interesting thought, right? We destroy ourselves with what is supposed to fix us. Well, so this is an indication of the catastrophic state of the world’s oceans. But with this commonality, which can be experienced through the creation of the installation, but also through the representation of corals, which live in symbiosis with algae, the tangle has two ends. We destroy the environment together. But the stitch of one holds the stitch of the other.

With the visit to Baden-Baden, a kitschy hope arises: only together can you crochet such big reefs. And only save the corals together (at least if the global temperature does not rise by 1.5 degrees). And it really doesn’t matter how old you are.

The exhibition Coral value and change by Margaret and Christine Wertheim can be seen in the Museum Frieder Burda until June 26th

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