Haltern am See: Silbersee II

As a supposedly natural place, the Silbersee II is the perfect complement to the urban exhibition locations of the Ruhr Ding: Klima. Here, art and visitors are relentlessly exposed to the climatic conditions and the physical experience at the bathing lake enables a completely different art experience. One of the first decisions concerning the Climate edition was to invite Vlado Velkov, a guest curator whose exhibition project Odyssee im Möhnesee 2017 made a lasting impression. Working with the artists in and around water provides an elegant way of opening up the unwieldy subject to sensory experiences from the outset. With the water and the weather at the lake, climate is inescapably present. The motion of swimming around a sculpture, the act of swimming to a floating platform, or the relaxed, almost unconscious reception of art on the lake bank override all the regular art-business ways of looking at art: there are no floors, no walls, no pumps, and no smart suits. The difference between art audience and bathers blurs in a mist of sunscreen, if you let it. This is about mysterious apparitions and the history of the quarry pond, about possibilities to assemble, about shadows and meditation. There is a changing room and, of course, there has to be a sand sculpture. Strictly speaking, with the floating sculpture, there are even two works dedicated — not solely, but also — to sand as a material.