Ayse Erkmen: Eins Zwei Drei Cat. Kunsthalle Vogelmann. Städtische Museen Heilbronn

Ayse Erkmen’s arrival on the world stage of art has come as no surprise, though still with actions of great conceptual strength. The artist, who studied classical sculpture in Istanbul in the early 1970s and now lives both there and in Berlin, caused a worldwide sensation with her helicopter flight around Münster Cathedral as part of SkulpturProjekte 1997—tethered to the helicopter was a sculpture damaged in World War II—and again twenty years later with her work "On Water," also created for SkulpturProjekte, that allowed visitors to walk on water in the harbor basin in Münster. The contrast between East and West, however, is of little artistic relevance to her, since she tends to examine "what the place and the situation demand (of her)." Over five decades, an oeuvre rooted in sculpture and characterized by sharpness of thought, sensuality, and formal consistency has been created, whereby a variety of concepts, forms, media, and materials intersect on a number of different levels. The book provides a brilliant overview of this artistic development, with additional insights revealed by curator Rita Täuber’s highly instructive text.

Rita E. Taeuber is a German art historian and since 2010 curator at the Städtische Museen Heilbronn. She has organized exhibitions on Joseph Beuys and Thomas Schütte, among others, and edited the corresponding catalogs. Marc Gundel is a German art historian and since 2003 director at the Städtische Museen Heilbronn. He initiated with the Ernst Franz Vogelmann Foundation the construction of a modern gallery space in Heilbronn, which has focused on temporary exhibitions of modern and contemporary art since its establishing in 2010. With the Franz Ernst Vogelmann Prize for Sculpture, which has been awarded since 2007, he has also created a format that attracts international attention. The previous award winners were: Roman Signer (2008), Franz Erhard Walther (2011), Thomas Schütte (2014), and Richard Deacon (2017).