Anyone who has ever been to an art museum may have noticed that paintings have an effect on each other and in the exhibition space as if they were surrounded by invisible force fields. They also have an effect on visitors. They attract us, while we give others a wide berth. This has not escaped the artist Thomas Hartmann. He compares the phenomenon to invisible cosmic processes that operate in the vacuum of space.
Anyone who has ever been to an art museum may have noticed that paintings have an effect on each other and in the exhibition space as if they were surrounded by invisible force fields. They also have an effect on visitors. They attract us, while we give others a wide berth. This has not escaped the artist Thomas Hartmann. He compares the phenomenon to invisible cosmic processes that operate in the vacuum of space.
This comparison already indicates that the artist works on a large scale. In the light-flooded white cube of the Kunsthalle Rostock, his paintings find the ideal place to unfold their monumental effect. In doing so, he sensitively explores their reach beyond the boundaries of their canvases. He groups them on the seven-metre-high walls of the cube, around an empty middle. This center becomes the exciting center in which the external forces are bundled. The so-called "Hartmann hangings" invite us to reflect on being and non-being, on existence and decay.
The artist also deals with the transience of his own work. He does not leave it to posterity alone to evaluate his pictures, and certainly not to the executors of his estate. Thomas Hartmann believes that not every picture needs to be preserved. Only from a distance is it possible to judge which works should survive. A storage shelf, overflowing with 300 destroyed pictures, becomes a monument to self-empowerment. Like a shrine, he piles up the relics to form a new work of art. Selection and destruction are part of the artistic process. Shelves are important tools for organizing and preserving - a metaphor for persistence in the face of transience.
For the past two years, he has also been creating "small cinemas" together with Alexander Kluge - unusual projection objects that are more sculpture, more model than cinema or output device. They condense content and forms of presentation. Both artists share a preference for intermediality and unusual staging as well as a pronounced bibliophilia and intellectual depth.
Alexander Kluge is a writer, filmmaker and producer. He is considered a co-founder of New German Cinema and an authority in the field of film theory and is known for combining literature, film and philosophy.
Thomas Hartmann held a professorship for painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg until 2018. He lives and works in Berlin. Alongside video art, painting and installation are the three central media of his work. They form the pillars of the exhibition, which can be seen at the Kunsthalle Rostock from December 18, 2025 to March 1, 2026.
Funding and support:
The project was developed in cooperation with Galerie Schwarz.
Kunsthalle Rostock gGmbH is supported by the OSPA Foundation, the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock, the Ministry of Science, Culture, Federal and European Affairs of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, ROSTOCK PORT GmbH, Nordwasser GmbH, Stadtwerke Rostock AG, Wall GmbH and the association "Freunde der Kunsthalle Rostock e. V.". Health partner: Klinikum Südstadt Rostock, cultural partner: NDR Kultur
