in context of room, building and city

For the Kunstverein Ruhr, Fritz Balthaus linked the exhibition space to the outer space of the square with a few specific measures. Time and time again, this is about correlations, reflections and repentances. A bollard or "barrier post" made of granite experiences its irritating concrete counterpart in the room. A small bottle of herbal liqueur, which from the outside leans to the shop window as if by chance, finds its relics with a mirrored label also inside the room. The letters "Stoffe am Kopstadtplatz" stick in the mirror on the shop window and exactly (but mirrored) the typography of the shop floor next door. The door handles are missing, but are re-arranged by the artist an acute-angled floor sculpture reminiscent of the form language of Norbert Kricke. And the two already existing two dominant pillars in the space set aside the artistic interventions in a self-evident way. Art and life, sculpture and objects of everyday life, the interior and the exterior space are in a relationship of tension. But Balthaus is not concerned with exact correspondences to pure 1: 1 symmetry, but by slight, quite observable deviations and inaccuracies. Seen in this way, the title language game GENAUA, GENUA is also a key to the work. The attentive viewers and accidental passers-by, so that also the inner city square as such are enriched by the possibility of a deep and at the same time humorous aesthetic experience.

Peter Friese