In her work "Nicht im Regen stehen" (Not Left Out in the Rain), Angelika Wischermann enters into a multilayered dialogue with Max Weiler’s painting "Munterer Himmel" (Cheerful Sky). The work begins with an apparently protective everyday object: an open, dark blue umbrella resting on the ground. Only upon closer inspection does its transformation become apparent. Thousands of pins have been pushed through the umbrella fabric from within. On the interior, the bright pinheads condense into a star-like constellation; on the exterior, however, they form a spiky, forbidding surface that, depending on the light, gleams with an unsettling menace.
In doing so, Wischermann continues a recurring aspect of her artistic practice: transforming familiar objects into ambivalent bodies. Protection and danger, attraction and repulsion, exist in close proximity. She also interprets "Munterer Himmel" (Cheerful Sky) in an ambivalent way. For her, the painting does not merely depict fair weather; it also suggests rain, or even the possibility of an approaching storm.
This ambivalence also reflects a critical reconsideration of Max Weiler himself. The umbrella becomes a carrier of uncomfortable questions—questions of biographical omissions, adaptation and transformation, and the tensions between artistic greatness and historical responsibility. A sky stretches above the object that is not merely cheerful, but marked by contradictions.
Text: Lena Ganahl
Photo: David Steinbacher