German-born artist, Artemis Herber has exhibited extensively throughout the US and in countries such as Germany, UK, Italy and Spain. Highlights include award winning exhibitions Lost Spaces, Kunstverein Paderborn, Germany, Room Installation at Munich International Airport, Cardboard City at the Goethe-Institut, Washington, DC, No Man’s Land at Artisphere in Arlington, VA,
National Trust’s Newark Park and Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, Gloucestershire UK, (Un)Common Spaces at the Spartanburg Art Museum, SC, This End Up-The Art of Cardboard at the San Jose Museum of Art, and “Beyond/In Western New York” at the Albright-Knox Gallery, NY.
Herber is a Baltimore Sculpture Project prize recipient and a Sondheim Semifinalist at MICA. Her work has been featured in various publications such as LandEscape Now!, Studio Visit Magazine, Art Ascent Art & Literature Journal, One Hundred Days by Contaminate, NYC and in an Artist Interview Series through the Linus Galleries in LA.
Artemis engages in cross-cultural relationships through the International Visitors Program, ResearchTrip: Dialogue between Art and Nature – Methods and Strategies of Curating Art in Public Space, by invitation from the International Cultural Relations of NRW KULTURsekretariat, and via global artist collaborations and curatorial projects.
As president of the Washington Sculptors Group Herber has initiated and curated landart and land use projects with the Baltimore County Agricultural Center and the Sandy Spring Museum in Montgomery County. She partners with the University of the District of Columbia for CAUSES that will investigate trans-disciplinary concepts between arts and scientific fields of urban agriculture.
As a curator for Transatlantic Cultural Projects, Herber has created Micro-Monuments at the Salzlandmuseum, Saxony- Anhalt, Germany, and Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies that relate to recently discovered prehistoric archaeological sites. With “Micro-Monuments”, small-scale sculptural works communicate a global perspective on aspects of monumental phenomena informed by diverse cultural backgrounds in dialog.
Educated in Germany, she completed her studies in Fine Arts and Arts Education at the University of Paderborn, achieving scholarships and prizes.
Statement
With my large-scale sculptural installations I create interactive environments that speak to the relation between the viewer, place and space. In various groupings adapted to any area, the pieces communicate with each other, with surrounding work. This connection creates a unique experience for visitors while urging the consideration of larger issues of how we as humans integrate into and impact our surroundings.
My concept roots itself in places of thresholds and areas of transition where people walk in and around a setting that allows new perspectives while being on the move or in a constant flow. Our environment is characterized by mobility and fluctuation. With my installations I prefer to define places instead of indefinite spaces, where visitors feel welcome during a time of threshold and awaiting.
Through my installations I found a way to reclaim those indefinite spaces as non-places of our every day life defining them as personal and characteristic in “feeding” the imagery with emotions, memories and history through personal experiences. That is the moment when I regain non-places as a place, where I create a position between here and there, now and later, between place and space, space and time. In that visual moment I create a warm, approachable site, where visitors feel welcome and can find a break from the bustle and mobility within a dynamic setting of vivid and organic sculptures. My structures communicate through their gaps and openings, allowing visitors to walk in and around while experiencing the place as changeable, dynamic and harboring at the same time.
I create an energizing relationship between installation and site. The pieces can be configured endlessly, transforming any space into a specific place. Various dynamic relationships form through groupings and gaps inviting the visitor to interact while walking through surprise openings in a constant flow of ever-changing perspectives. This connection creates a unique experience for visitors while suggesting a warm climate of living, coexistence and interactions that occupies common spaces, provoking a dialog about space as a field of possible action.
At first the artwork is site-less, systemic and unfinished but once the pieces are submerged into the proposed environment they function as a spatial activator and amplify the surrounding scenery and create fields of possible action. Their scale, color and surface reflection, creates a strong presence in their environment. The segments are painted in vibrant, metallic or rusty colors. I transform the surface into something that appears different (like metal or fabric) through the use of a “natural” handmade process, I reduce the product to a minimalist expression in color and form, thereby forming my own language.
Email the Artist: artemisherber@mac.com
