The Kunsthalle Barmen has been in a phase of reorganisation since 2024. The takeover by the school of art and design at the University of Wuppertal will create a place where art, science and society come together. "As part of the university transfer project, the Kunsthalle will become a 'Wuppertal cabinet of curiosities' in which interdisciplinary collaboration will be the central principle," say those responsible.

Cooperation with the Port-Hamiltonian Systems Collaborative Research Centre

The new exhibition effort + flow - mathematics and art in dialogue continues this approach. It is being organised in cooperation with the Collaborative Research Centre Port-Hamiltonian Systems at the University of Wuppertal, which is funded by the German Research Foundation and researches fundamental models for energy flows and dynamic interactions at the interface of mathematics, engineering and physics. For the first time, these theoretical concepts will be related to artistic works and at the same time used as impulses for creative and artistic research.

The focus is on works that reflect the principles of mathematical modelling: Energy that circulates in objects and environments; forces that couple and feed back; fields that organise themselves, oscillate or seek equilibrium; interfaces where systems meet. On show are installations, objects, videos and interactive experiments by Katja Davar, Sabrina Fritsch, Theo Jansen, Fischli/Weiss and Thomas Rentmeister, among others. They range from algorithmic and kinetic processes to works that visualise ecological or social systems.

Space for new formats

The Kunsthalle Barmen offers a particularly open environment for this. Its location in the Haus der Jugend connects it with a broad and heterogeneous public. At the same time, the close collaboration with students from the University of Wuppertal creates a laboratory for new forms of cultural education and thus a space with flat hierarchies and new learning and mediation formats.

In this lively context, maths and art meet as two independent, but connectable systems of knowledge. Both search for patterns, energy flows and structures that shape the world and model reality - but in different ways. The exhibition makes these transitions visible: a search for resonance, for common vocabularies, for movements between structure and perception.

A comprehensive accompanying programme of lectures, workshops and guided tours deepens this dialogue and opens up new approaches to energy flows, dynamics and models in art and science.  The programme will be published on the Kunsthalle Barmen website until the exhibition opens: kunsthallebarmen.de/.

The exhibition effort + flow invites visitors not only to analyse systems, but also to experience them, and to understand art and mathematics as impulses for new horizons.

Date Vernissage: Friday 16 January, 7 pm, Location: Kunsthalle Barmen, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 4-6, Wuppertal