Air has an existential significance for all forms of life in the world. It is everywhere, albeit invisible and evanescent; it is literally impalpable. While until now in everyday life we have taken air for granted, in current political and social discourses air appears as a central element: during the corona crisis, we wear face masks to protect others from the air we breathe out; scientists are investigating the role of aerosols in the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, and climate activists fight for clean air and hence against climate change. The depiction of air has been one of the artistic challenges at least since the Renaissance. As a material, however, air is a relatively recent ¬phenomenon in art. The artists of Modernism strived for the artistic appropriation of the world as well as its dissolution and transformation. It therefore only seems logical that they regarded air not only as an idea, but also as a material. Air was no longer depicted merely as wind, clouds, fog, steam, smoke, or breath, but has been deliberately used as a material. Thus it has been both a medium of expression as well as a subject in the visual, applied and performing arts since then.
About the Author: Barbara J. Scheuermann, born 1975, is a German art historian and author. In 2005 she wrote her doctoral thesis on Narrative Strategies in Contemporary Art. From 2005 to 2015, she worked for numerous European art magazines such as Kunstzeitung, Artnet, Art Pulse and for the cultural editorial department of the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. From 2012 to 2016, she was curator at the Wilhelm Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen and has now been head of the graphics collection and exhibition curator at the Kunstmuseum Bonn since 2016. Edith Kollath works in Berlin. In her research, she examines transformation processes, precarious conditions and their particular social, ecological and philosophical contexts. This results in multimedia installations, performative objects and collaborative projects that become centers of thought and text movements spanning a wide variety of disciplines within the Arts and Sciences. She studied fine arts as well as fashion and costume design in Hamburg. Barbara J. Scheuermann, born 1975, is a German art historian and author. In 2005 she wrote her doctoral thesis on Narrative Strategies in Contemporary Art. From 2005 to 2015, she worked for numerous European art magazines such as Kunstzeitung, Artnet, Art Pulse and for the cultural editorial department of the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. From 2012 to 2016, she was curator at the Wilhelm Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen and has now been head of the graphics collection and exhibition curator at the Kunstmuseum Bonn since 2016. Anna Döbbelin is a scientific volunteer at the Kunstmuseum Bonn and has already contributed to the preparation of several exhibitions there. Until 2019, she led a young initiative of the Museum Ludwig and guided tours of the Museum Ludwig for the Cologne Museum Service. She was also involved in the International Photoscene Cologne.