Neue Nationalgalerie IV

About Sabine Wild

London, Paris, Rome, Berlin – Sabine Wild toured Europe’s major cities armed with a camera, ready to transform monuments and skylines in her very special way. Her architectural images are works of art composed of structures and light. Wild captures the world in lines. Her typical vertical and horizontal hatching creates a flickering structure. A fascinating picture in which only hints of the

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

London, Paris, Rome, Berlin – Sabine Wild toured Europe’s major cities armed with a camera, ready to transform monuments and skylines in her very special way. Her architectural images are works of art composed of structures and light. Wild captures the world in lines. Her typical vertical and horizontal hatching creates a flickering structure. A fascinating picture in which only hints of the underlying reality remain.

Thanks to Sabine Wild, the Römer in Frankfurt seems like a gothic convention of lights. At the same time, it is not a picture that gives off a feeling of medieval confinement; bright and fresh colours dominate. In the Sachenshäuser Ufer, the artist brings a natural element into her normally very abstract visual language. Arising from the “real” cityscape, the wintry boughs are naturally formed shapes that do not want to assimilate into the horizontal lines of the river or the verticals lines of the Frankfurt skyline. In this way, Wild’s art creates an exciting contrast between art and reality, between alienation and naturalness.

New York Projections and Asian Projections

In New York Projections and Asian Projections, Sabine Wild discovers the beauty of the night, which experiences a special appeal in cities full of artificial lights. The lit-up buildings, streetlights, and headlights serve as creative material for the artist’s urban compositions. Luminous batches of colour break through the graphical austerity that Wild otherwise consistently sticks to. The famous skylines of New York, Hong Kong, and Shanghai appear as if painted: Action Painting 2.0.

Sabine Wild has further developed her vertical-line visual language and discovered the digital means for creating her work. In post-processing, she designs her thrilling compositions – dark horizontal and vertical lines stand by powerful colours, painterly passages by graphical areas. As in painting, the energetic way the colour is applied determines the effect the image has. Sabine Wild reveals a new, impressive look at the world and its architecture.

Woods

In her Woods series, Sabine Wild takes her painterly means of expression into the abstract. While her architectural images give an impression of reality, here, she dissolves it into shapes and lines. The longer one’s gaze rests on the picture, the more the lines transform back into trees.

It is not sorcery but the unique art of Sabine Wild. The composition quotes her architectural work. Lakefronts and bogs lie peacefully in the horizontal lines. Tall trees rise into strong vertical lines. In between, their boughs refine the surrounding space. Sometimes Wild leaves the subtleties of tree bark plainly recognisable, and sometimes she obscures them with superimposed lines.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Sabine Wild subtly brings diverse structures and our big cities’ hidden dynamics to light. She elegantly and uniquely deconstructs urban architecture. Through the digital blurring, her photographic work takes on emphatic aspects of painting. This new art form, which Wild unquestionably created, is most clearly recognisable in her Woods series, in which she masterfully employs gestural painting and artistic photography. Born in Italy in 1962, the artist now lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

TECHNIQUE

Dissolving fixed visual structures

In her work, Sabine Wild captures landscapes and architecture in patterns of lines, shapes, and colours. She translates the swift movements and fast pace of the cities into pictures that can be read in a second. Her photographs settle into the realm somewhere between mirage and reality.

Atmospheric images

The forest compositions almost seem like an alternative draft of the urban works. In different levels of abstraction, she captures the moods of the seasons: the stillness of a winter day between the thin trunks, or the spring green, next to which those out for a stroll appear like dabs of colour. That which Sabine Wild develops through formal resolutions and impressionistic dissolutions is emotional and intoxicating.

VITA

Sabine Wild was born in 1962 in Padua, Italy. Her art has appeared in numerous solo and group exhibitions across Europe and Asia. In 2005, she co-founded the Berlin Gallery en passant, which has since been renamed ep.contemporary. Starting in 2008, she has organized an annual studio crawl in Berlin called Südwestpassage Kultour. Her work can be found in many public and private collections. Sabine Wild has been living and working in Berlin since 1985.

INTERVIEW

When did you become interested in art? How did it all begin?
After studying German, linguistics, and Spanish, I discovered photography through my public relations position at the Federal Chamber of Architects; I photographed their events as part of my work. That's actually how I first discovered my interest in photography, which was a surprising moment.

How would you describe your work process?
When I begin to render abstract works, I have a vague idea or notion of how I want to change the motif beforehand. For me, the process of abstracting my subjects, which are usually megacities, is about changing the perception of these urban landscapes. According to the United Nations, by 2030 about 30% of people will live in cities. These megacities often trigger conflicting feelings for me: fascination and fright. By liquefying areas of color and emphasizing single bright colors, I want to show the speed of traffic patterns. Moreover, by breaking up the tectonics of the buildings and fragmenting the facades, I create a dramatic moment: the fragility of the facades.
I ask myself: What is the architectural concept of these cities? How do they influence the individual? People are never present in my photographs; they virtually disappear into the concrete masses and are, through their absence, all the more present.

Who inspires you?
People who are courageous, life-affirming, energetic, who try to go their own way, and who have a high level of social competence – and, of course, are simply likeable.

Which artists/works of art are you particularly impressed with at the moment?
I admire Chinese artist Cao Fei, whose work I first saw in her 2018 “Haze and Fog” exhibition in Düsseldorf at K21. In fact, I returned several times because I was completely fascinated by it.

What distinguishes a good work of art?
A good work of art must inspire me, unsettle me, excite me, bring me new life.

What project are you working on at the moment?
Because of Corona, traveling was not possible for quite some time. I am still working on Chonqging and Chengdu motifs from 2019. Soon, I plan to visit the Expo in Dubai and I look forward to finding new inspiration and experiencing the city’s architectural highlights.

What is the purpose of art?
Actually, my answers correspond to what I previously expressed above: At its best, art can disrupt, awaken, liberate from entrenched views, and offer new perspectives.

Does art bring about happiness?
Definitely, very much so actually! If I see even 1 or 2 good works in an exhibition, I am overcome with inspiration. And when a new idea begins to flourish, I feel electrified with excitement!