The Short Night of the Galleries and Museums in Wiesbaden will take place again after two years! In the Nassauischer Kunstverein you can look forward to art under construction with exclusive construction site insights, elevator music and ice-cold drinks as well as the intervention Elevator Shaft Opening by Alex Chalmers, recently seen in the group exhibition Touch Release, who continues his artistic exploration of our elevator installation on site.
Shooting stars played on a hologram fan is suspended within the elevator shaft, visible from the entrance on the ground floor. This technology is normally used to advertise products for sale. The video combines found footage, documentation and footage from filming a flex / grinder tool. The flex is the main tool used to cut metal therefore to also de-install elevators. There is a formal connection between the grinder and the hologram fan. During one part of the video the grinder can be seen touching the edges of the hologram fan revealing the apparatus that it is playing on.
Constellation 1 - 4 is a series that combines 9 photographs each, grouped together in portrait form. The photographs are printed film stills from 8-hour long video footage which documents the artist and two of his colleagues de-installing and removing an elevator from a shaft in Frankfurt am Main. Due to the shafts lighting and the grouping of the photographs, the work resembles a constellation of stars. This series was first shown last year in the group exhibition Touch Release at the Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden. The works were positioned where the new shaft entrances would cut through the building. Now the series is hung mid-construction on the second floor of the Kunstverein where the new shaft can be seen.
About the artist /
Alex Chalmers (*1991 Whangārei, Neuseeland) received a BFA at the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts and studied with professor Haegue Yang at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, where he received the title of Meisterschüler in 2021. Recent exhibitions include: Purgatory at 1822-Forum Frankfurt (2022), Touch Release at Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden (2021), Städelschule Absolventenaustellung, Frankfurt (2021) and (working title) at gr_und, Berlin (2020). He currently lives and works in Frankfurt am Main.
