25.9. – 15.10.2015

Art Weak is presenting a free collection of art from the archive of the last eight years. Art Weak is starting just after the Art Week Berlin has closed. With Art Weak, Crystal Ball gallery points out its position in relation to other gallery spaces. Again financial weakness, a smaller space or shortage of manpower is no disclusion from „official“ art. There is no barrier to present strong and innovative art as the establisment wants to let you know. The in- and exclusion strategies of the capitalistic art system is getting more and more  transparent and odious. To accept the procedere and maintain to this immoral regiment of rules is not a noble aim for us as many others. The spaces are forming a new movement, where they freely name themselves art or project space or „Off“ spaces. To even use the word gallery is in discredit. ( Even big established gallery spaces are now ironically starting so called project spaces to take part in this movement. ) If this is barely a moderate gesture shall be on the viewers opinion. But even in this network Crystal Ball is different by saying : „We are not Off, We are here! Not Underground, not Mainstream, not any other drawer. We are not willing to accept the categories of a leading authority. We take our responsibility, work on the gallery concept and present art.

Vernissage on 17. July 2015 at 7 p.m.
Finissage with cake and music on Sun. 9. August, 2-7 p.m.

Christoph Hegemann’s sculptural work has a rare diversity and ambiguous aura. In his work, the figure is in its primary state and at the same time also a memory. The synthesis of these essentially contradictory aspects constitute a unique position. The sujets of the individual characters and words are poetic, idiosyncratic and thoughtfully circumscribed. Since the Ninetees Christoph Hegemann works with the Verlorene Form. The means of control in the creation process in which you mold an original negative in the soil, and the figures are poured directly in the sand, is also working with the dichotomy of chance. Density and consistency of soil, parts of plants, earthen fragments and sediments come into play and create a unique enigmatic form. The aesthetic sensibility of the earthen material, which appears as an exterior form, molded by aging and erosion, gives the object a gentle mythical presence, which points to something past and invisible.

Vernissage with performance of the artists at Fr. 17th. April 2015 at 7 p.m.

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he two artists from Bremen thematise with Mare Liberum, a principle originally from the 17th century, for the free use of the oceans also their personal artistic sense of freedom as a metaphor. In modern times, even the great indomitable seas, although at first on a cartographic level, are put to fragmentation and division into zones of possession and regulations. How does it stand there with the artistic freedom in a time of so-called past contemporary art? Both artists of the exhibition duo refer to it differently but open an interaction. Tom Gefkens playful works combine art historical quotes with certain forms of presentation and materials to associatively image objects. The often painted images, with wellknown female nudes, are fragments of shattered wooden crates. The pictures of the exhibtion seems to have been shipwrecked already in Gefken work and the “contemporary accident” is clearly obvious like an evolutionary relict preserved behind glass. Rainer Weber works in his sculptures with a fundamental equation of the materials and the motivic goal of a purposeless form. Concrete artifacts such as films, reinforcement and construction waste as cement, metal and plastic are put in together and Weber synthesizes unreasonable objects. The work has an aura of autonomy and ease that is based in their anti-functional strategy. In Mare Liberum a liberal aura of art after the “accident of the contemporary” appears.
At the opening of the exhibition, the artists will customize the visitors on request exclusive ballpoint pen tattoos.

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Installation and performance, curated by Monika Müller Kroll & Manfred Kirschner
Opening with performance on Fr. 19 September at 7 p.m.
until 11.10.2014 Finissage with performance at at 7 p.m.

The exhibition is dedicated to the work and the craft of Anna Müller. Long before terms like “up-cycling” came into use, Anna Müller was working with discarded “superfluous” thread material from a textile factory, weaving it together to crochet various mysterious objects. Monika Müller Kroll, the granddaughter of Anna Müller, wants to present and preserve the wealth of her work. Work, which also shows a fundamental post-war attitude, in which the appreciation, use, and recycling of materials is very evident. This consistency of thought puts into perspective the claims and attitudes of today’s eco-trends. The exhibition, presented in the form of an audio-visual installation, focuses on pieces created between 1980 and 2000. Anna Müller was born in 1910 in rural Franconia, where she lived all her life, near the Lucas-Cranach-Stadt, Kronach. She died in 2006. Her legacy, hundreds of crochet rugs and blankets, stored away for many years compelled Monika Müller-Kroll to pick up Anna Müller’s thread, creating several exemplary new pieces from the work she has left behind. And while Anna Müller might be surprised what her granddaughter has done with her craft, she would be happy to know that her work is appreciated, seen and used.