Marit Wolters' sculptures speak of presence: ephemeral constructions in constant dialogue with the space they occupy, which explore and value the potential of the material. Anne Glassner's actions are structured around the observation of recurring day-to-day events. The collaboration comes after their exhibitions in 2021 and 2022 at Villa Tugendhat, also the work of Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich. Now, in the Mies van der Rohe pavilion, they present an intervention that brings together their respective languages to establish a dialogue between architecture and nature, the public and the private, the domestic and the exhibition, the observer and the observed, the banal and the exceptional. Presence and absence.
«Lost Limits» by Anne Glassner and Marit Wolters. Photograph by Anna Mas.
A set of concrete sculptures made by Wolters using the water of the large pond in which they are located is integrated into the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion and visually refers to the travertine that surrounds them. For its part, the performance takes us back to an unusual domesticity in the Pavilion. The artists wear camouflage clothing that visually merges them with the architecture and perform everyday gestures – sitting, walking, looking, lying down, drinking, eating or playing – that are recontextualized within the Pavilion. They incorporate the visitor as part of the work, whose presence can interrupt or redirect the movement of the performers.
«Lost Limits» by Anne Glassner and Marit Wolters. Photograph by Anna Mas.
For the artists, moving everyday activities from the private sphere to a public space such as the Pavilion is a way of restoring a sense of intimacy. Through this intervention, Wolters and Glassner invite visitors to become aware of the way in which simple acts, such as watering a plant or changing posture, connect with architecture. At the same time, the work proposes to perceive the porosity of limits: how architecture, objects and human presence can converge to dissolve borders, encouraging reflection on the interaction between hiding and revealing, absence and presence, art and life.
