now open: Nadine Karl: »Intime Komplizenschaft – Ein arides Flirren« (Düsseldorf)
In the exhibition, Nadine Karl develops an approach to archipelagic thinking following Édouard Glissant and turns her attention to a simple yet far-reaching question: What do we see when we see landscape? Lucius Burckhardt writes that “perceiving landscape […] has to be learned.” Landscape, then, is never simply what lies before us. It is shaped by perception, memory, and the knowledge we associate with a place.
In Karl’s works, this familiar understanding of landscape begins to waver. Using light, photographic objects, and olfactory elements, she explores landscape as something that changes, in which different temporalities and forms of life converge. Photographs of the Atacama Desert are juxtaposed with images of the Himmelgeister Rheinbogen nature reserve. Two landscapes that could hardly be more different geographically and ecologically. It is precisely through this difference that they enter into relation with one another.
At the centre are convex, monochrome-printed aluminium works. Their curvature draws the photographic image out of the flat plane. Light and reflection alter the image as viewers move through the space. The landscape no longer has a fixed state.
Its disappearance, too, becomes tangible in Karl’s works. Burnt openings and ruptures break through individual photographs. At these points, the material seems to have become condensed. Something has broken away, contracted, or dissolved, and as a result is no longer visible to us. What do we see when part of a landscape is missing? And when do we notice, in the first place, that something has disappeared?
This raises the question of temporality. Landscapes emerge, change, and disappear over different spans of time. In the candles made of wax, dried herbs from the Bavarian Forest, and sand, temporality becomes physical and material. The hand-dipped taper candles appear to exist at different moments of the burning process: some already burned down, others yet to be lit. Scent, warmth, melting, accumulation, and burning are as much a part of the work as the photographic image. Time is not represented; rather, it unfolds through and between the materials.
A glass candle seems to become almost invisible. Here, Karl’s work touches upon Édouard Glissant’s concept of relation: places, histories, and forms of life do not exist in isolation from one another, but change through their relationships with each other. Likewise, in Karl’s work, the Atacama and the Rheinbogen are not made equivalent. Their difference remains intact and, precisely for this reason, becomes the starting point for their connection.
Exhibition
September 5 – October 17, 2026
DC Open · Extended Opening Hours
Friday, September 4
1–5 PM · Press Preview with the artist
6–10 PM · Opening with the artist
Saturday, September 5
1–7 PM
Sunday, September 6
1–5 PM
Galerie 3AP
Fürstenwall 74 · 40219 Düsseldorf
Credit: Exhibition view »Intime Komplizenschaft – Ein arides Flirren« – Nadine Karl, Photos: JMR-Dokumentation. Courtesy: the artist and Galerie 3AP/Düsseldorf.
