Visual
Resonance

OVERVIEW

DATE10.06.23 - 12.08.23

LOCATIONMBzwo Showroom, Berlin, Germany

CURATORCULTURE ROOM

ABOUT

CULTURE ROOM is proud to present Visual Resonance, our latest exhibition project at the MBzwo showroom in Rummelsbucht, Berlin. With this presentation, we aim to create a space for the intuitive experience of contemporary visual art. In the context of the modern art market, academic discourse, and rigid frameworks of art history, viewing art can often feel inaccessible. What is frequently overlooked is that art does not require intellectual comprehension or the decoding of a singular meaning. Instead, it offers an opportunity for personal engagement, contemplation, and emotional resonance. Visual Resonance encourages viewers to move beyond considerations of historical reference, societal commentary, or technical method, and instead to respond to the visual impulses and subtle energies of the works themselves. This approach resonates with the philosophies of Mark Rothko, who compared painting to music: an art form capable of moving us deeply without full understanding, and Wassily Kandinsky, who in The Art of Spiritual Harmony described art as a path toward spiritual discovery rather than mere representation. For Kandinsky, music exemplifies the capacity of non-visual forms to express inner experience, inspiring visual artists to pursue abstraction as a means of communicating the complexity of the inner world. The artists featured in Visual Resonance explore these ideas in distinct and complementary ways.

OVERVIEW

Katsuhiko Matsubara

Katsuhiko Matsubara depicts vibrant “inner landscapes” or “fictional ecosystems on canvas”, which can be described as “spiritual microcosms” that oscillate between material and immaterial expressions and are strongly influenced by the philosophical concept of animism, an idea deeply rooted in Japanese culture. Through the vast depth and detail, his paintings develop an engulfing presence in the room, coming alive in front of the viewer through a constant exchange between matter and spirit. “He treats the paintings as living beings. In a way, it is more like growing a painting than the actual image painting as an act itself. It is comparable to observing the great variety of plants and organisms flourishing in a garden. It is about picking up the vision as the voice that each painting carries within itself and helping it to sprout.“

Moritz Berg

Moritz Berg focuses on the impact of a nature informed environment and its aesthetic impressions on one. He translates these impressions into abstract formations through his artistic process. This concept is informed by the principle of a mindful perception of our environment and relates to the idea of a passive presence of the mind. This allows Berg to perceive his surroundings without the boundaries of our socio-cultural informed filters that often disconnect us from the world. “My aesthetic reaction is not retrieved from memory, or derived from social norms. Thus the individual aesthetic sensation and its effect can be explored.”

Lilian Mühlenkamp

Lilian Mühlenkamp’s artistic practice is characterized by the embracement of random factors in her workflow. In this game of creating and reacting to intentionally generated, uncontrollable impulses, she creates highly detailed and complex, yet always abstract, otherworldly spheres which often evoke associations of hidden structures in our reality that become visible through the painterly process, just as chladni sound figures become visible through the vibration of metal plates. “An inner sense of synesthesia is also an inspiration and impulse for many artworks. People, situations or moments are felt deeply in the form of colorful senses or colorflows which sometimes remain in her memory and are brought into a painting.”