Silke Schatz: Meyer Riegger, Berlin

Cologne-based artist Silke Schatz’s (b. 1967) exhibition at Meyer Riegger, Berlin presents various bodies of work from her long-term project Manheim calling. Spanning three and a half years, the project documents the village of Manheim – soon to be wiped off the map – in the mining zone of the Hambach open-cast lignite mine.

The exhibition, entitled Vanishing point, captures the essence of Schatz’s fieldwork: the artist identified the plants that have reclaimed the territory abandoned by humans. She captured their wind-blown silhouettes in cyanotype, preserved towering umbellifers, declared them canvases and exhibited them. She paid homage to the village’s overgrown orchard, taking an imprint of the bark structure from selected trunks using clay. In autumn, she harvested and preserved the fruit. She collected shards of pottery with evidence of human presence and arranged them like archaeological finds in glass vitrines.

Explaining the title Vanishing point, Schatz describes it as symbolising the “I-It relationship”, the relationship between culture and nature. It also marks the culmination of her project in the spring/summer of 2024, coinciding with the forthcoming excavation of Manheim – one of the last in the region scheduled for demolition.