A sandwich on the go followed by a lesson in fine arts was offered to five DESY CONNECT members at the Hamburger Kunsthalle on 23 May 2024
The popular and quickly fully booked after-work tour "Kunst & Stulle" ("art & sandwich") served as the kick-off for our own DESY CONNECT excursion series "Talk & Tonic".
Art historian Rena Wiekhorst from the Young Friends of the Hamburger Kunsthalle provides our DESY CONNECT members with interesting insights into Caspar David Friedrich's "Der Wanderer " (the hiker).
Talk & Tonic: the after-work excursion for DESY CONNECT members
With "Talk & Tonic", DESY CONNECT members regularly go on discovery tours through Hamburg. After all, discovering new cultural, scientific and economic things together is the most fun. And if you feel like it, you can grab a drink together at the end.
Rendez-vous with "dear Caspar"
Exclusively for DESY CONNECT, we were able to secure a few places for the evening art tour in advance and organise a prize draw among our DESY CONNECT members. Five DESY CONNECT members then went to the Hamburger Kunsthalle on 23 May 2024. After we enjoyed a sandwich together and got to know each other briefly, art historian Rena led us past paintings and sculptures into a room with works by Caspar David Friedrich, to whom the Hamburger Kunsthalle had recently dedicated a major exhibition and whom Rena affectionately called "our dear Caspar". After a brief tête-à-tête with Caspar, we made our way to the real highlight of the evening, an immersive artwork spanning two floors. On display was "The Ephemeral Lake", a large digital installation by Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen, who merged nature observation, imaging techniques, video technology and AI in his multi-layered work.
"Ephemeral Lakes": Impressive immersive spatial experience by Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen.
The beauty of nature as a digital experience
Rena's detour via Caspar David Friedrich's nature paintings was purposely chosen, as Steensen was inspired by "dear Caspar". The result is a visually stunning work that deals with the fascinating natural phenomenon of "Ephemeral Lakes". The geological term ephemeral lakes describes the occurrence of periodic accumulations of water in dry, barren and often desert-like landscapes. For his work, Steensen took thousands of photographs and scans of the landscape and the flora and fauna that he had collected during his research trips to Death Valley and the Mojave Desert in California (USA). He combined these with 3D animations, sound and light effects to create a multi-sensory environment. The constantly changing virtual world of "The Ephemeral Lake" generated ever new variations in real time. "Art meets science" at its best, or as the Danes would say: virkelig cool!
"Ephemeral Lakes" Part 2: the installation by artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen extends over two floors in the Hamburger Kunsthalle.
Rooftop bar with sunset
Having had so much inspiring art input, we felt thirsty for a farewell drink and so our small group headed to the roof terrace of Jupiter, a bar in a vacant department stores' at the main railway station, which is now available for interim use by Hamburg's art and design professionals. On the former roller-skating rink of the department stores', we toasted the successful evening with a picturesque sunset. The end of a really nice art excursion.
We round off our evening of art over the rooftops of Hamburg with a picture-perfect sunset.
We're already looking forward to exploring more places with "Talk & Tonic".