How can wind be made visible? Can the element of air be represented? How can something that is usually invisible to the human eye be captured photographically?

Amsterdam-based artist Sjoerd Knibbeler (born 1981) explores complex natural phenomena. His starting point is his interest in the discovery of the world through human imagination, inventions and technologies. Each of his work complexes requires meticulous observations of nature, experiments and exchanges with scientists. On this basis, he creates various models that allow fleeting moments – be it a gust of wind or a ray of sunshine – to be experienced. Using the medium of photography, Sjoerd Knibbeler ultimately renders these invisible natural processes visible in aesthetically refined images, inviting viewers to engage with their content.

The exhibition focuses on works from the series Current Studies, Exploded Views and In Elements. The artist was selected as Artist in Residence at the MKdW back in 2017. His stay on the island of Föhr marked the beginning of his latest series, Exploded Views, which is now being shown in its entirety for the first time. In the summer of 2020, Knibbeler returned to the island to focus on the theme of climate change and to artistically explore possible human interventions. The resulting works, In Elements, are also on display in this solo exhibition, which is his first museum show in Germany.

Editor: Ulrike Wolff-Thomsen for the Museum Kunst der Westküste

Editor-in-chief: Pia Littmann

Publisher: Hatje Cantz Verlag

Texts: Jörg Colberg, David Keith, Ariane Koek, Pia Littmann, Design by Rutger Fuchs

Edition: Softcover with flaps

Format: 21.0 x 28.0 x 1.3 cm

Weight: 710 g

Pages: 144

Language: German, English

Number of colour illustrations: 55

Number of black and white illustrations: 15

ISBN: 978-3-7757-4911-4