page_title: Bruno Kurz
section_title: Installations
hierarchical_section_title: Bruno Kurz / Installations
caption_attribution_description: English: art installation by Bruno Kurz 3
context_page_description: Bruno Kurz is a German painter. He primarily works on reflective surfaces such as metal, creating paintings of great luminosity and depth – expansive colour fields with vague allusions to landscape. Apart from painting, his work comprises large art installations fashioned through light.
context_section_description: Bruno Kurz obtained his first studio on the premises of the IWKA (Industriewerke-Karlsruhe-Augsburg) in Karlsruhe in 1986. With Georg Schalla, he founded the artists' group KUNSTRAUM IWKA and campaigned for the preservation of the huge industrial buildings on the premises. He co-organised a series of exhibitions titled Letzte Arbeitsberichte IWKA I and II, which was vital for saving the building Hallenbau A, now Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, ZKM (Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe).
  Yet the artists could not ultimately prevent the destruction of the other buildings and the sale of the estate – in December 1986, the Karlsruhe City Council authorised the premises to be demolished, including the enormous art installations in the industrial buildings. For their gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) KUNSTRAUM IWKA, the artists group were awarded a project grant by the Kunstfond (Arts Fund) Bonn, which entailed a documentary exhibition in Bonn.
  Bruno Kurz created large-scale art installations in his first studio on the IWKA premises. He wanted to generate an adequate counterbalance to the colossal industrial building through large-scale art works and installed huge geometric sculptures of plastic sheeting that reflected the sunlight coming through the sawtooth roof (Installation Kunstraum IWKA, 1987): "Rain water puddles caused by the leaking roof cast back vast reflections and gave the artist further stimuli for his work. In 1988, for the first time, he used water as a sculptural material in space. The clarity of the installations he has since created is a result of these early architectural-monumental experiences of space. Further down the line, he created his spectacular installation 'aller Farben bloß' in the baroque halls of the Ettlinger Schloss (Ettlingen Palace)."
  Taking inspiration from the monikers "Green, Blue and Red Salon" and their corresponding tapestries, he installed coloured plastic film in the windows of the halls and created a sequence of coloured light. Notwithstanding the wide range of artistic possibilities offered by three-dimensional space, the formal, aesthetic and conceptual means of his installations clearly relate to his painting practice.
caption: Grüner Saal in the Ettlinger Schloss (Ettlingen Palace), 2003
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