Arts Centre Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium

Artist duo Martin Kaltwasser and Folke Köberling have been working on their ecological art projects that place urban life centrally and question 21st century consumer culture since 1998. To Kaltwasser and Köbberling, sustainability and ecology are naturally connected to their artistic creations. Recycled wood is their favourite material and many of their works mock the omnipresent car. Recycling various materials is their – cynical – answer to capitalist throw-away culture. What typifies this duo is the fact that they work outside the context of a museum, and instead choose to present their work in public places where the visitor can admire the work from close by.

Both artists can fall back on their background as architects for the production of their art projects. In September 2008 they and forty volunteers built a two-storey art gallery from waste wood in Cambridge. They call it “a mix of a barn, a cathedral and a monastery” and hope to screen films and hold art exhibits there soon. At the game is up, Kaltwasser and Köbberling will present Crushed Cayenne, a sculpture of two crashed cars in wood, and Autos zu Fahrrädern, two bicycles they made out of one car. They will also perform a city intervention with car condoms.

Crushed Cayenne

It will be hard to ignore Crushed Cayenne in the Café: two crashed cars entirely made out of wood. SUVs like these, which combine the luxury of a passenger car and the look of a jeep, are increasingly popular, even though they guzzle more gas and emit more CO² than an ordinary car. Kaltwasser & Köbberling made this sculpture in 2008 at the Club Transmediale in Berlin.

Autos zu Fahrrädern

In Graz, Austria, the duo got an assignment from the Steirische Herbst festival.
They had to build two bicycles from the material recuperated from one car in the city square. A heart-warmingly illogical transformation that left many Graz inhabitants stunned. Kaltwasser and Köbberling will bring the vehicles to Ghent… by train. After they take them for a ride through Ghent, the bicycles can be admired at the exhibition, together with documentation material about their work process and the ‘transformation’.

Car condom

On top of that, the German duo will also perform an intervention in the city during which they will hand out car condoms. The condom is meant to go on the exhaust pipe of your car to catch exhaust fumes. A safe, clean and environmentally friendly protection against CO² emission and other toxic fumes.

www.folkekoebberling.de

Crushed Cayenne was commissioned by Club Transmediale
Autos zu Fahrrädern was commissioned by Steirischer Herbst & Haus der Architektur (HAD)