Schaufenster 3

For Schaufenster 3, the Konschthal Esch has invited Caecilia Tripp to exhibit her work entitled "Liquid Earth", made during an artist residency in Bourglinster in 2018. Liquid Earth is a transmedia work, combining the categories of video art and contemporary dance with earth sciences and relational poetics as described by Edouard Glissant.

Armand Quetsch, on the other hand, presents an ensemble of monumental photographs brought together in the square before the Konschthal and the railway viaduct opposite the contemporary art space. "By the same paths" brings together photos taken on a footpath near the artist's home.

Caecilia Tripp's Liquid Earth work develops with time capsules in space, with ZOME and its founder Theodore Wohng, along with his spatial collaborator Jonathan Nguyen.

During her artist residency in Bourglinster from January to March 2018, Caecilia Tripp focussed her attention on a very special part of the Grand Duchy: the "Minett" Terres Rouges. In an artistic approach that references the writings of Edouard Glissant (1928-2011) and others, Caecilia Tripp associates the images of an erupting volcano with those of a contemporary dance choreography. Glissant considered the landscape as an active "character" in History. For the author from Martinique, landscape constituted an active, not a passive, element. And this active identity of the landscape can be felt in both the images and the soundtrack of the "Liquid Earth" video. The sound of rhythmic breathing is associated with the sounds of the eruptions of the Nyiragongo volcano, located in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It is important in this context to specify that the dancer in the "Liquid Earth" video is none other than Georges Maikel Pires Monteiro, born in Luxembourg to Cape Verdean parents. His performance also references the work of iron and steel workers notably his costume, which is that of the emblematic "Feierstëppler". This association of the volcanic magma and a symbolic approach to the industrial past of the region makes "Liquid Earth" a work that produces an original view of an historical context, but also a socio-cultural reality of today. We have to bear in mind that the "Brill" district in Esch, in which the Konschthal is situated, is a nerve centre for the Cape Verdean community in Luxembourg.

Caecilia Tripp's work has been presented in such places as MOMA/PS1, New York, USA, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, De Appel in Amsterdam, the Museum of Modern Art in Moscow, the Dakar Biennale, the Clark House Initiative, Bombay, India, the Center Of Contemporary Arts, New Orleans, USA, the Zacheta Gallery Warsaw, Poland, the Brooklyn Museum, New York, USA, the Bronx Museum, New York, USA, in the Centre d'Art Contemporain in Ivry, Le Credac, Yvry-sur-Seine and recently at the Sharjah Biennale 14, at the Toronto Biennale together with Art Gallery of York University (AGYU) Toronto, Canada.

Liquid Earth exhibition is expanding into space As Time Capsules in collaboration with ZOME (AR) its founder Theodore Wohng and the Melbourne based space curator Jonathan Nguyen.

Caecilia Tripp benefits from the support of Ministère Culture Luxembourg and from the collaboration with European Center of Geodynamics and Seismology and the Royal Museum of Central Africa (Belgium), the artist especially Thanks Nicolas d'Oreye de Lantremange.

Framework programme: Opening day, Georges Maikel Pires Monteiro, the dancer-actor in the "Liquid Earth" video presents a live performance on the Konschthal site, in resonance with the presentation of Caecilia Tripp's work.

As in the last two editions, Schaufenster 3 also invests public space.

Armand Quetsch transforms the pillars of the railway viaduct facing the Konschthal with a series of monumental images representing tree trunks. More precisely, the boles of trees, for Armand Quetsch's point of view is that of a direct face-to-face encounter such as one might have in the course of a stroll along a forest path.

Armand Quetsch practices subversion on the boulevard Prince Henri, a section of the ring road around the centre of Esch-sur-Alzette: the pillars of the viaduct become far more than merely supports for the railway line. Visible by automobile traffic coming from both directions, the columns form a new order which, though not Ionic, is at least natural.

Facing these colonnades, the facade of the Konschthal becomes the support for the (negative) image of a tree with a multiplicity of branches. This urban intervention is in direct resonance with the theme of the European Month of Photography (Rethinking Nature/Rethinking Landscape), and simultaneously embodies the theme of transformation that lies at the heart of current and future Konschthal Esch programmes.

On the opening day, the Konschthal also presents a first view of the photography commission that Philippe Roguet is executing on the old Rout Lëns industrial site, very close to the Konschthal Esch. Three large-format photographs are exhibited temporarily in the Konschthal. These documentary images present the emblematic industrial buildings of the Lentille Rouge site.

This association of 3 existing and original bodies of work again gives concrete expression to the Konschthal Esch's vocation to present and foster dialogue between artistic productions associated with our region while simultaneously creating openings toward the international scene.