After work talk⎮Judith Fegerl

The focus of the conversation with gallerist Behncke is the examination of the individual works by Judith Fegerl, e.g. Moment (2018) makes our chronic electricity dependency vividly visible. The room-high, filigree sculpture is held together solely by an electromagnetic field generated by coils of copper wire. If the coils are disconnected from the current, the sculptures immediately fall apart. The discarded and artistically arranged solar panels of the wall work Last Light (2022) are also charged with tension. Functional but bereft of its inherent usefulness, it is no longer the sunlight but the curious gaze of the beholder that is drawn to the technoid charm of the shimmering crystal structures.

The fusion of sober, functional technology and the so-called "fine arts" is a constant in Judith Fegerl's work. The resulting works are always fascinating, magical units. The painterly quality of the Series of Electric Shocks (2022) almost evokes a classic image of the painter in the studio. Rather, Fegerl's light-flooded studio resembles a laboratory in which the large-format steel plates are dipped in a complex manner into a bath of liquid containing copper. That sounds harmless at first, but when electrodes are added and the artist initiates an electrochemical process, extreme caution is required. Fegerl's material studies, which often last for years, make the respective reaction in the process fundamentally predictable for her. In the end, however, a certain unpredictability is her constant companion.

The dialogue with the audience is about how Judith Fegerl deals with the scarce resource of energy in her works.