Rúrí: Aqua – Silence

Videoinstallations on LED screens

22 April through 9 November 2009

Beginning on 21 April 2009 a video installation by the Icelandic artist Rúrí will be presented on the SEVEN SCREENS, part of the OSRAM ART PROJECTS in Munich. The seven LED stelae in front of the OSRAM headquarters will host the installation Aqua – Silence, a silent sequence – as its title suggests – of images of water in all its various forms: ocean waves, waterfalls and glaciers. The new installation is the seventh of its kind to be presented on the SEVEN SCREENS since these screens were created in 2006. Far less quiet is the message of Rúrí, who has become renown beyond the borders of her native Iceland. In her work the artist examines the fragile relationship between nature and mankind. 

Rúrí: Art and Nature
Born in Reykjavík in 1951, Rúrí studied at the Icelandic College of Art and Crafts in Reykjavik and at the De Vrije Academie in The Hague. Numerous artist grants and periods abroad led her to such countries as Holland, Canada, France, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and China. Rúrí gained international recognition in 1978 when she headed the artists’ project “Experimental Environment” in which more than 100 Northern European artists participated. Further recognition came when she represented Iceland at the Venice Biennale in 2003. Many of her works can be found in private and public collections, including those of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Henie-Onstad Art Center in Norway and the National Gallery of Iceland. Rúrí was already a guest artist in Munich in October 2008 when she mounted a space and sound installation in the Lukaskirche. Her works are characterized by an exemplary mixture of philosophical testimonies and artistic forms of expression. “For me art is philosophy. My work deals with the connection between mankind, the Earth and the universe, as well as with mankind in the age of the Earth and with human perceptions.”

Homage to an essential resource
The Icelander’s works can be associated with three thematic concepts: time, relativity and the cosmos. The installation Aqua – Silence unifies these three themes by means of its concentration on aspects of transience. Rúrí gives her socio-critical statements an almost lyrical form. Water and time are amorphous, mobile, near invisible and yet both determine human existence at a fundamental level. The sequence of images presented on the SEVEN SCREENS portray the multiformity of water and are a reference to its mythical quality and its symbolic power, a trait shared by all cultures. At the same time, the artist urges the viewer to recognize the great value of this unique resource, as well as one’s own transitory nature in the context of the global perspective.

Cultural rays of hope
As the creator of the SEVEN SCREENS, OSRAM also assumes a global perspective. Sustainability, the promotion of culture and social responsibility are integral components of OSRAM’s corporate culture.
Along with the GALLERY, which is over 40 years old, and the COLLECTION, the OSRAM ART PROJECTS also includes the SEVEN SCREENS, an extension of the company-initiated art projects in public space. Located in front of the OSRAM headquarters, seven high-tech stelae – with more than 750,000 RGB high-capacity LEDs – have hosted installations by international artists, twice a year, since 2006. Every pixel can display more than 16 million different colors, so that the digital instillations possess an impressive color and light intensity. The special feature of the current installation: the SEVEN SCREENS unite art and water in the open, right in the heart of the city. Natural sky light and artificial LED light orchestrate a performance in which nature, art and city encounter one another like elements of a new age.

OSRAM: Environmental awareness and sustainable business
With the installation Aqua – Silence, the OSRAM ART PROJECTS’s director, Dr. Christian Schoen, unites his curatorial endeavors with entrepreneurial responsibility: “We wish to incorporate light and art in a public space and have created a unique and challenging platform for artistic expression.” Today nearly 65% of company sales are made in energy efficient products. This is just one way that OSRAM remains a “shining” example of entrepreneurial responsibility.