Galerie Parterre, Berlin
March 4 – June 21, 2020

Carbon Dreams is dedicated to the theme of coal, which has served as an energy source for centuries. It holds a special connection to the history of the exhibition venue. For a century, town gas was produced from coal at the former municipal gasworks on Danziger Straße. Coal has also long been a medium for visual representation.

Many Berlin artists have engaged with the gasworks in their work, a facility that shaped the life of the district until 1981. Locally and globally, coal was for a long time decisive for the industrial rise and prosperity of the Western world. Today, the era of fossil energy is in crisis.

The works in this exhibition raise questions around this topic, as few issues in public discourse are as fraught with ambiguity as energy supply in the context of environment and society. The playful and analytical approach underlying the artistic works offers ideas for reflecting on human existence and action.

The exhibition grew out of the project “Drawing as Idea” by artists Alexandra Wolframm, Juliane Schmidt, Diana Legel, and Elena Gavrisch. Since 2015, they have devoted themselves through a series of exhibitions to the conceptual potential of drawing as an instrument for investigating and understanding the world, as well as expanding its definition through the media and forms of contemporary art.

Featuring works by Ursula Achternkamp, Yvonne Andreini, Elena Gavrisch, Jarek Grulkowski, David Krippendorff, Ulrike Mohr, Diana Legel, Juliane Schmidt, Alexandra Wolframm, and selections from the Pankow Art Collection.

Ulrike Mohr, Spatial Drawing Time in a Tree
Robinia charcoal, dimensions 9 × 4.3 × 2 m

The spatial drawing features the following branches:
Ff 5.1. (1-28), Zz 2 (1-9), Dd 3.2.2. (1-30), Ee (1-16), Ff 5 (1-25), Zz 1 (1-17), Zz 1.3. (1-8), Dd 3.2.1. (1-14), Ff 6 (1-11) & Ee 4, Ff 1.1.2, Ff 1.1. (1-12), Ff 6 (12-23), Ff 3 (2-14), Ff 1 (1-14), Zz 2 (1-14), Zz (1-9), Ff 6 (1-11), Ee 1.1. (1-17), Ee 5 (1-14), Ff 7 (1-6), Ff 1.1. (1-9), Dd 3.2. (1-27), E1 (1-15), Ff 2 (27-37, 1-10), Ff 1.1.3., Dd 3 (1-17), Ee 2.2.1., Ee 2.1. (1-10), Ff 2 (10-26 or 1-17), Dd 3 (1-11), Dd 3.2.2. (1-10), Dd 3.1 (1-15), Ee 2.1.2, F1 (1-9), Ee 2 (1-12), Dd 1 (1-8), Dd 3.3 (1-) – x, Ee 1.1. (1-17), Ee 3.1. (1-27), Bb 1.1. (1-18), Bb 1.1.1. (1-19), Bb 1.1.1. (1-18), Bb 1.2. (1-15)

The display case contains selected tree cross-sections, robinia analysis, drawings, lists, measurements, and numbers, measuring 240 × 60 × 82 cm.