In his work Bernd Halbherr explores possibilities for a whole new reading of photographic images, i.e. visual information, by translating them into the third or even fourth dimension.

In the case of his photographic spheres the transfer of a “space” onto a spatial body occurs quite literally, with techniques used to apply a 360° photograph to the entire surface area of an orb, transferring a “concave” image, so to speak, to a completely convex body. The result is an inverted mirror image of the room itself, as it would look if a highly reflective sphere were to take the place of the camera. The spheres, an entire space concentrated on their surface, momentarily suggest the presence of a room that is not there (or in which the viewer is not now present). Their beauty as works of sculpture is the result of artistic craft – physical production processes not measured by absolute technical perfection. A rotation procedure, for example, is used to coat the surface of the spheres with synthetic resin so that they appear to be made of glass or porcelain.

‘Between Us’, the 2017/2018 series of works on walls, also addresses the endless possibilities of perceiving a specific space, here by introducing an immediate temporal element: the photographic image is combined with a real mirror image, rendering the viewer at once both present and absent. Here too, basic geometrical shapes create a refreshing abstraction that allows a space to be both clearly defined but also very expansive.

The series ‘Mourning Mountains’ and the video installation ‘News’ strike a new balance in the tension between abstraction and figuration. Only after intense observation do the small-format landscape sculptures reveal themselves to be war photography from global flashpoints, transferred onto a three-dimensional form. Theses images can be suppressed from consciousness, but they remain present.

This show presents mainly the artist’s most recent works, some created especially for the Cologne exhibition.

Bernd Halbherr (*1964, Ulm) studied with Klaus Rinke at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorfer from 1992 to 1997, earning a degree from Professor Rinke’s master class. Halbherr currently teaches in Sculpture Department at Chung Ang University, Seoul, South Korea. Works by Bernd Halbherr are found in numerous collections, such as: Kunstmuseum im Ehrenhof, Düsseldorf; Sammlung Herman, Karlsruhe; Sammlung Stoschek, Duesseldorf.