Selected works from the SØR Rusche Collection 

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Christian Achenbach / Johannes Albers / Tom Anholt / Christian Awe / BEZA / Fritz Bornstück / Jonas Burgert / DAG / Julius Deutschbauer / Roger Eberhard / Marcus Eek / Leonard Forslund / Günther Förg / Thorleif Griess-Nega / Amelie Grözinger / Philip Grözinger / Søren Jensen / Eske Kath / Clemens Krauss / Andrei Loginov / Adrian Lohmüller / Bjørn Melhus / Ulrik Møller / Lars Nørgård / Julia Oschatz / Steve Schepens / Moritz Schleime / Sebastiaan Schlicher / Rigo Schmidt / Emanuel Seitz / Lucy Teasdale

Water is the basis for all life. Precisely because it is such an existential element, it has fascinated humans for thousands of years and has provided considerable sustenance for mythology, poetry, music and the visual arts. The human body consists primarily of water and 70 % of the earth’s surface is covered by water - oceans seas, lakes and rivers. It is the ambivalence that we associate with the sea - on the one hand calmness, great distances and freedom, on the other uncontrollable forces, unfathomable depths and a mysterious aura - that polarises the imagination and the pioneering spirit of man. Only in Christianity does God rule the waters. Moses can divide it, Jesus is able to walk on it and the church instrumentalises it as a symbolic tool of faith for baptism.

When the power of the church and the aristocracy began to fade in the 17^th century and the commissions for portraits and religious painting began to wane, artists began to turn to genre painting and discover water as a subject. Significantly, a number of seascapes were painted by 17^th century Dutch masters. Up to this day, water plays an important role as a motif for artists. Its primordial violence is erratic, sinking luxury cruise liners like the Titanic, destroying entire coasts with Tsunamis and pulling people to their death. This bizarre violence sparks the imagination. Portraying the element water is not just a technical challenge, but remains a concern and a need of artists then and now.

The exhibition ALLES WASSER in the Galerie Mikael Andersen is dedicated entirely to this classical subject. The exhibition is curated by the artist Philip Grözinger, who, in cooperation with Dr. Dr. Thomas Rusche, has placed selected positions of contemporary artists in a dialogue with masters of the 17^th century from the SØR Rusche Collection Oelde/Berlin.

To see pictures from the opening of Alles Wasser, please visit the website of SØR Rusche by following this LINK.