Just a few days prior to our Crete trip, I headed down to Karlsruhe to document the final exhibition and work of an artist friend, Hang.  She, along with her fellow classmates, had reached the climax of their studies at the Karlsruhe Kunstakademie, and would soon be receiving the German equivalent of an MFA degree. Kate and I took the hot journey down to see the students’ works in a less congested environment, since this particular viewing was open only to professors and other students, not the general public.

It was incredibly, awfully hot that day. Something like 39 degrees. So humid that the sweat just collected on every surface and remained. Slick. No relief in a stray breeze to be found.

Hang’s personal studio turned exhibition space was on the top floor, where the roof slanted and let in sideways light from giant sloping windows overhead.

Despite the heat, I loved the room.

She had six pieces in total. My personal favorite of which was the blue creature (above).

This photo doesn’t do justice to the rich levels of navy and cobalt present in this work.

Though it almost goes without saying, her style is spare.

This was another favorite piece. To describe it in layman’s ways, it consisted of a giant hand drawn ‘X’ encompassing one large white wall.  You can see a detail of the intersection above on the left, and the wall as a whole on the right.  The weight of the lines are not entirely consistent. As your eye wanders from one corner, to the center, and out to another corner, the lines ebb and flow from a heavy mark to a faint dash, and back again.

We were fortunate enough to spend some time viewing several of the other students’ galleries that night.

The expressiveness of this artist’s work, caught my eye.

As did the overstuffed, cluttered hallways. Full of canvases, supplies and things that weren’t meant to be shown in an exhibition space, but were nevertheless just as intriguing.

The works by this artist were particularly engaging, and pushed me in a direction of contemporary art that I was eager to move toward.

Note, the book that neither begins nor ends.