Galerie Blankenese
Hamburg, Germany
Sept. 15, 1991
Introduction
by Ulla Hahn
Claire Wolf Krantz's Vernissage
We have all heard the following phrase before: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder --an almost trivial phrase which is nonetheless true. And that is why I ask for your understanding from the very beginning: if I mention not only pictures but poems as well in my commentary about Claire Wolf Krantz's work, it is because I see her work through the eyes of someone who writes poems. I am not an art critic, and it would be presumptuous to pretend I was one.
First, though, a little about the artist's biography. Claire Wolf Krantz began her career as an artist in 1978. Until that time she pursued studies and, just widowed, supported herself and her children by working as an occupational therapist. After her remarriage she continued her university studies and received her degree in art history and art criticism. She is an art critic as well as an artist. From 1989‑1990 she lived with her husband in Gent where she gave lectures at the university. Several of the pieces here refer to her stay in Gent. Since 1980 Claire Wolf Krantz has made a name for herself, participating in numerous exhibitions which are listed in detail on the invitation to this show.
In poetry there exists the title poeta doctus, the learned poet. When I look at the developmental process which characterizes Claire Wolf Krantz's work and career, I feel that one must create a special title for her: pictora docta, the learned painter. What does that mean?
That means that Claire Wolf Krantz knows what she is doing. She knows exactly how to create tension between spontaneity and reflection, modernity and tradition, and, most importantly (since this is the main theme of her work), nature and culture. The simultaneous use of three elements creates this tension in the pieces themselves. These elements, which Claire Wolf Krantz considers absolutely necessary for the modem artist, are painting, photography and drawing. Drawing was a more dominant component in her earlier works where it occupied the foreground and depicted concrete objects. Today the element of drawing is reduced to a single line, "a path", as the artist herself calls it. Such a path can sometimes be very realistic, as in Wolfsstraat Penetentenstraat for example. The path in the picture recreates her daily route in Gent.
One can know about such things, but one does not have to because Claire Wolf Krantz's work deals with exploring elements of art. She experiments with the medium itself, trying out new combinations and building contrasts.
According to Claire Wolf Krantz herself, the central problem dealt with in her work is that of meaning. She uses the genre of landscape painting as a metaphor in her effort to explore the various aspects of meaning in art. This brings us to a further point of comparison between poetry and art: How can landscape, nature be portrayed in our time, either through words or images? The landscape painting and the nature poem of the classical‑romantic tradition do not offer a satisfactory solution. The flight of the swallows, the wind in the birch trees, the "whirling ecstasy in the grass" described in Annette von Droste Hulshoff's's poem ‑‑ we cannot identify with these symbols any more. Or can we?
As I said before, Claire Wolf Krantz's pictures live from the tension of contrast. I wish to add another moment of tension, a poem. Look for example at the picture Sand and listen to this poem by Josef von Eichendorff, which many of you certainly know:
Moonlit Night.
When the sky softly kissed the earth,
She, dressed in flower shimmer, dreamed of him.
The wind swept through the fields
The grain fields billowed
The forests rustled gently
The starry night was so clear.
And my soul spread wide its wings
Flew through the quiet land
As if it were flying home.
That was long ago? Yes. But yet: in spite of all the destruction, in spite of our awareness of this destruction, we still experience moments such as those described in Eichendorff's poem and depicted in Claire Wolf Krantz's pictures. In her pictures, however, the feeling is cooler, more reserved than in Eichendorff's poem. Anything else would be naive, since we are all aware that the harmony between human beings and nature is in grave danger. Claire Wolf Krantz calls her pictures "dynamic maps". Maps which invite the viewer to go his/her own way without forcing a "right way", a "correct interpretation" upon him/her. It is Claire Wolf Krantz's own decision to leave the pictures unframed. You can see the difference yourself. The pictures had already been framed and hung when we talked with the gallery owner and got permission to show the difference between framed and unframed by removing the frame from two works. This difference is not only of aesthetic importance, however; one must remember that Claire Wolf Krantz's pictures are open and dynamic, and thus should not be framed. Just like any good modem poem, her pictures want to do more than cause puzzlement or approval. They demand an active observer who can complete the picture in his/her own imagination. Above all, however, her pictures, like a poem, require meditative silence, a calm and patient observer. They do not jump out at the observer, overwhelming him/her, but demand rather concentrated attention.
These pictures are not only the product of a "learned painter", but also of a woman, an artist who goes beyond the world of concrete objects by using precisely these objects themselves, an artist who makes us look inside ourselves by confronting us with images of the outside world. The pictures of Claire Wolf Krantz are also pictures for contemplation and meditation.
The main theme, the tension between nature and culture, is always present. Every picture reminds us that we truly are "children of the earth", as Ernst Meister once said, and that only the preservation of nature can assure a future worth living for.
And now, to close this introduction, I ask you to choose one of Claire Wolf Krantz's pictures and to look at it while I read Ingeborg Bachmann's poem:
"The earth wants a freedom escort".
The day dawns with sleepdrunken birds
and windshot trees, and the sea
pours a frothy pitcher over her.
The rivers tumble towards the sea,
and the land places promises of love
in the mouth of the pure air
with fresh flowers.
The earth doesn't want to carry a mushroom of smoke,
doesn't want to spit out any creature into the sky,
with rain and bolts of wrath she will destroy
the unbelievable voices of doom.
She wants to see, with us, the colorful brothers
and the grey sisters awake,
His Majesty the Fish, Her Highness the Nightingale
and the Fireprince the Salamander.
She plants, for us, coral in the sea.
She orders the forests to remain still,
the marble to swell its pretty veins,
the dew to dampen the ashes yet again.
The earth wants a freedom escort into space
every day out of the night,
so that still a thousand and one mornings arise
from the old beauty of young mercy.
Claire Wolf Krantz is an artist, freelance critic, and guest curator.
As an artist she works in a combination of painting and photography as well as digitally created images.