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Bertram Weisshaar
waiting and walking

Strollology in Uhyst with Bertram Weisshaar

Visitors to Uhyst find many signs of waiting. In fact, the entire place, the entire region seems to exist in a state of waiting. The advertising boards either side of the main through-road tell of the wait for customers. In front of the often-lowered gates of the railway level crossing, that divides the town into two halves, people wait every day for the train to pass. At the bus stop with its unusual architecture, the bus stands ready while the driver smokes a last cigarette, waiting until it's time to go. The ever-present fishermen, lined up along the banks of the pond at Uhyst's fishery, seem to engage in waiting as a higher form of existence. But Uhyst also shows signs of "The Big Wait" - each of the 122 windows of the town's manor house, out of use since 1990, seems to be keeping a lookout for an investor with plenty of capital and an interesting usage concept (which currently seems to have been found). A similar situation characterizes the newly built pier on Bärwalder See that is due to be inaugurated in a few days - the flooding of the former opencast mine is approaching the planned water level and the much-hoped-for pleasure boats and tourists can now take possession of the lake. Meanwhile, many mothers and fathers are waiting for their children to return to Uhyst after completing their vocational training in the hope that they might find a future here.

The walk entitled "waiting and walking" with Bertram Weisshaar takes in several sites of waiting, presented via performative elements and temporary installations that appeal to both eye and ear. The railway station, for example, is explored as a park scene. On this day, paintings from Uhyst living rooms gather to form the "Uhyst Art Collection". And occasionally, the walkers become involved in the action themselves. On the shore of the new lake, for example, they become part of a new landscape.
The starting point for the walk is the "Pädagogium". This former boarding school is always associated with Hermann Pückler-Muskau, the most fascinating and famous figure to pass through Uhyst. During his four years spent as a pupil here, the future creator of the parks in Muskau and Branitz had his first contact with gardens when he was entrusted with the care of part of the school garden. And this was not the only field Pückler learned to cultivate in Uhyst, as we learn from one of his surviving letters: "Not yet ten years old, I fell terribly in love with a docile maid, and we soon found ways to meet alone in sometimes strange places and, mouth to mouth and with tears in our eyes, to expire in ecstasy. But our young love did not remain innocent. (...) I was mature very early and had already been led astray, so to speak. My gentle maid likewise, by her playmates, and in this way, like two girls, in total innocence as it were, with no pangs of conscience at least, and with great enthusiasm, we indulged insatiably in love and sensuality, like uninhibited children, for almost a whole year ..." (Heinz Ohff, Der grüne Fürst) Even today, then, this austere and now decaying institution in Uhyst can still teach us something: Odd characters are loved - as long as they lived in the past.

Bertram Weisshaar

weiterer Spaziergang mit Bertram Weisshaar
im Rahmen des Festivals Transnaturale am 31. August, 14 Uhr


B i o g r a p h y

1962 Born in Baden-Würtemberg

Lehre zum Fotografen

Tätigkeit als Industriefotograf

Studium an der Universität GHK Kassel, Studiengang Landschaftsplanung

seit 1995 freischaffend tätig als Spaziergangsforscher und Fotograf
in Partnerschaft mit unterschiedlichen Institutionen

1998 Gründung von alias - Atelier für Spaziergangsforschung in Dessau


1999 Melitta Förderpreis Bildende Kunst


2001 Gründung Atelier LATENT in Leipzig


2006 Förderung VG BildKunst


2006 Kulturpreis Schwarzwald-Baar


P r o j e k t e (Auswahl)
1995 bis 1998 gartenkünstlerische Projekte im Braunkohlentagebau Golpa-Nord
(Sa.Anh.): Transitorische Gärten + Schwimmende Gärten

1997 Gründung des Museums "Exil des Priapos"
auf dem Grund der Grube Golpa-Nord

1997 + 1998 Organisation von "Claim-Summer Golpa-Nord"; Workshops + Kollogien
zur experimentellen, gartenkünstlerischen Inwertsetzung der Braunkohlenlandschaft

1998 "Gärten zum Borgen" - Beitrag zu Temporären Gärten Berlin

1999 -2000 "Gärten auf Reisen" - Gartenkünstlerisches Projekt mit Stationen in Berlin, Dessau, Halle, Potsdam, Weil am Rhein, Leipzig; Dokumentation in Dauerausstellung im Museum für europäische Gartenkunst Schloss Benrath

1999/2000 "Barbecue City - Promenadologie a Bordeaux"; Beitrag zur Ausstellung "Mutations" im Architekturzentrum arc en rêve, Bordeaux, Frankreich

2002 "sprawl garden" und "Gartenagentur"; Beitrag zur Kunstaustellung hell-gruen der Stadt Düsseldorf im Hofgarten Düsseldorf

seit 2002 zahlreiche Spaziergangsinszenierung zum Kontext Stadtwahrnehmung und Stadtumbau; z.B.: "quergebürstet" und "Wo Anne ihren ersten Kuß erhielt" für Stadt Leipzig, "Sprawl Garden"-Gartenhappening für Kunstverein Leipzig, "Spaziergang in der Landschaftslücke" im GrünGürtel Frankfurt (Main) für Umweltamt Frankfurt, "Gleichviel mit weniger" für Stadt Wurzen, "Spaziergang mit Radio Promenadologie" für Intern. Bauausstellung Fürst Pücklerland und für EuroLandArt 2006

2002 Initiierung "Tafelfestes" in der Lutherstadt Eisleben als Beitrag zum Wettbewerb "Stadtumbau Ost"; 3. Preis; (Arbeitsgruppe)

2003 "Treibgutreisen" Spaziergangs-Programm als Beitrag zu "Europagarten2003" in Frankfurt (Oder) und Slubice (Pl); in Zusammenarbeit mit einer Seminargruppe der Universität Viadrina

2003 Reiseprojekt "und dennoch" als Beitrag zur Landeskunstausstellung "Landschaften, Wildflecken und Gartenreich" an der staatl. Galerie Moritzburg, Halle (Saale)

2003 "Ortsbestimmungen"; Beitrag zu dem partizipatorischen Projekt "Der Friesische Teppich", initiiert von AdKV - Arbeitsgemeinschaft deutscher Kunstvereine

2003 "Kunst+Wasser Montafon", Landschaftsbezogenes Kunstkonzept für die Talschaft Montafon, Östereich

2004 3. Preis, Wettbewerb "Leben nach dem Kies" (Arbeitsgemeinschaft)

2004 "Die Suche nach dem Taschentuchbaum", Zu Fuß von Leipzig nach Köln durch die Kleingärten; Beitrag zur Ausstellung "Privatgrün", Kunstraum Fuhrwerkswaage, Köln

2004 "7 Räume 7 Träume"; Partizipationsprojekt zum Saarkohlenwald / Regionalpark Saar; in Arbeitsgemeinschaft

2005 Internationaler Fotoworkshop und Ausstellung "Ostrava - Peripherie oder was?", Ostrava, Tschechien

2006 "CamouSchaf", 2. Preis bei Kunst-Wettbewerb EuroLandArt Festival

2007 "GPS-Spaziergang" Zwischen AVUS, Bahngleis und Knüppeldamm, Berlin

www.atelier-latent.de