ANKE BUCHMANN

During the Berlin Art Week 2023, artist Anke Buchmann invited visitors with the performance “A Still Mind” to the finissage of her show “This Moment will never come back” to her studio & showroom in Berlin Prenzlauer Berg. The exhibition that featured ceramic artefacts of a 10-week synchronisation of breath and gestures, opened during the Berlin Gallery Weekend 2023.

During the performance on Friday, September 15, viewers witnessed Anke Buchmann attempting, for the first time in front of an audience, to still her mind through a sitting meditation on the potter’s wheel. There she entered a dialogue with the organic material clay and her body. As preparation for the meditation on the wheel, Buchmann consciously forms clay balls out of 420g clay.

Before entering a dialogue with the clay and as a start of the 6hr performance, Buchmann drew with just one breath, oversized ink circles with a brush on paper. Three deep breath let her arrive in the space and her body, documented in inc on paper.

Excurse:

With my left hand, I paint the circle in one breath – on inhale I paint half a circle, I pause before I exhale to paint the other part of the circle. It is a one breath drawing in ink, a form of meditation in preparation of the synchronisation of my breath and gestures on the potter’s wheel. Here I throw repeatedly circles in clay to quiet my mind. 

To me the circle itself represents a present moment, a moment where body and mind are at the same place. It also represents me and my energy in that very moment. In Zen Buddhism, the Enso, represents a circle of togetherness and can be closed as a symbol of a perfect form. The circles I paint are usually not closed. 

A visitor asked me recently, why my circles are open at the bottom? 

To me closing the circle doesn’t feel right. I paint the circles in one brushstroke in synchronisation with one breath. While I paint it, I pause. The gap on the bottom of the circle represents that pause – the pause between the inhale and the exhale as well as the pause before the next breath. What I like about the open circle is, that it leaves room for the unknown. It is the trust in time and in the process. It stands for accepting the unknown, not knowing what will be next. Instead of giving all the answers, it leaves room for questions.

It stands for the strength of imperfection. It shows how everything is in the process, nothing is ever done. Just like me in that very moment. 
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At the interface of performance, sculpture and painting, Anke Buchmann examined the question of how experiences can be lived more consciously through the material clay and how these can be preserved and documented through this organic matter. The result are full body experiences and artefacts that act as documentation of the lived experience and bear traces of the artist’s breath, touch and presence. Buchmann sees her sculptures as archives of lived experiences, memories, feelings and performative actions. 

On Sunday, September 17th, Anke Buchmann invited the public to a guided tour of her exhibition and concluded with the ceramics workshop Breathing with clay, where she guided the participants with repetitive gestures to form clay bowls in harmony with the breath.

With 420g, the volume of the artist’s lungs, Anke Buchmann threw circles in one breath on the potters wheel. During the 6hr performance she used 60kg of clay, equals her body weight.

One breath, one circle, one moment. One after another. On inhale a hole is pushed into the clay, on exhale a circle is pushed into shape. Each clay circle is unique as the breath of the artist in that very moment.

Every circle, representing a presently lived moment, is let go with an exhale by dropping it onto the previous one. The sculpture is shaped by consciously lived moments that were let go after experiencing them.

FREITAG FRIDAY 15 SEP

16 – 22 Uhr / 4 – 10pm

Performance: A Still Mind