MärklinWorld

The MärklinWorld exhibition features photographs, paintings, models & videos of cities and landscapes by forty international contemporary artists who have a fascination with the world as a constructed reality. Märklin is the brand name of a German company that has been making model railroads since 1891 for enthusiasts who have a miniature railroad at home (and preferably secretly in the attic) and thus are themselves the producer and director of their own created, often nostalgic, world. A MärklinWorld as an artificially designed world that imitates and sublimates reality. With MärklinWorld, KAdE shows that the landscape is a great source of inspiration for artists. They all know how to translate this in their own way into works of art that refer to reality and at the same time play with its unreality. As a result, you are constantly reminded of different things and the richness of the landscape is touched upon.

A train with a camera by KAdE
The centerpiece of the exhibition is a 60-meter-long model railroad (track 1), laid in a pattern designed by urban planning firm POSAD of The Hague. The train passes through the installations of the eight artists and immediately films them from the inside. As a visitor, you can walk past the installations and thus get a "bird's eye view" of them from above. The images from the train are immediately shown live on the wall, allowing you to experience the same landscape from the inside, as a "train passenger. This creates a multiple view of the artistic model world, in which you go through urbanity as well as nature.

The artists creating the installations, especially for KAdE, are: Krijn de Koning (NL, 1963), The Chadwicks (US), Friedrich Kunath (US, 1974), Tobias Putrih (SI, 1972), Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger (CH, 1967 & 1964), Ante Timmermans (BE, 1976), Leonid Tsvetkov (US, 1980) and Rob Voerman (NL, 1966).

Landscapes and dream worlds
In Ante Timmermans' installation "Echo," black light turns wooden pallets into skyscrapers. In the floor plan of these, Timmermans echoes the floor plan of the railroad tracks. Rob Voerman, on the other hand, offers an alternative to ordered cities with his installation. With cardboard, used wood and beeswax, he creates a dilapidated space that refers to the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht. In that space is a maquette derived from a modernist neighborhood, with which Voerman attempts to develop a vision of the role of architecture in social issues. The train also passes landscapes, or even dream worlds. For example, the Swiss Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger grow colored crystals between real branches, which continue to grow throughout the exhibition.

Photographs, paintings, models and videos of cities and landscapes
The first and second floors of the exhibition feature photographs, paintings, models and videos of cities and landscapes of real and constructed worlds. Artists play with the (in)realness of reality, giving a different view of familiar surroundings.

Featuring work by: Olivier Boberg (DE, 1965), Michael Borremans (BE, 1963), Sonja Braas (DE 1965), Eelco Brand (NL, 1969), Balthasar Burkhard (CH, 1944-2010), James Casebere (US, 1953), Croy & Elser (DE, 1970 & 1972), Miklos Gaál (FI, 1974), Willem van den Hoed (NL, 1965), Bodys Isek Kingelez (CD, 1948), Martin Luijendijk (NL, 1958), Stephan Mörsch (DE,1974), Otobong Nkanga (NG, 1974), Peter Bialobrezki (DE, 1961), Mark Lewis (CA, 1958), Miyuki Okuyama (JP, 1973), Hans Op de Beeck (BE, 1969), Jan Ros (NL, 1961), Frank van der Salm (NL, 1964), Michael Samuels (UK, 1964), Joel Sternfeld (US 1944), Thomas Struth (DE, 1954), Maurice van Tellingen (NL, 1957), Ulrich Vogl (DE, 1973), Robert Voit (DE, 1969), Hans Wilschut (NL, 1966) and Edwin Zwakman (NL, 1966).

What is still real?
True and constructed cities and landscapes flow together in the artworks. Real landscapes seem unreal, while made landscapes appear familiar. At the same time, the question arises as to what is still real about the world outside, which is partly man-made or contrived. The artists in MärklinWorld wrap up this alienating aspect in their work, where something always seems not quite right.

The manipulation of reality is used in photography in a variety of ways. Oliver Boberg and Edwin Zwakman both first create a scale model and then photograph it. In photographs, Boberg's landscapes appear indistinguishable from the real thing, while Zwakman deliberately creates confusion by showing that something is wrong.

Even the real world can look deceptive when photographed. Miklos Gaál, for example, chooses to use blurring to make the sense of scale disappear. In his landscapes, many of which are photographed from above, people seem like little dolls in a miniature landscape. Sonja Braas concentrates on nature in her photography. She photographed real landscapes and dioramas in natural history museums. Real nature appears fake, while the setting from the museum appears realistic.   

The tension between real and fake is explored not only in photography but also in other media. For example, Michaël Borremans painted a group of people building a miniature landscape. Jan Ros abstracts the landscape in his paintings, giving the guardrails a prominent role as a blurred line in the view of a highway. In an installation, Ulrich Vogl depicts a city at night, where only lights are visible. Fourteen slide projectors, already forming a landscape in itself, project the tiny dots.       

Colorful paper houses
Also on display will be a selection from 387 miniature houses by Peter Fritz. In 1993, artist Oliver Croy discovered a collection of 387 miniature houses in a bric-a-brac store in Vienna. Croy bought all the models, which turned out to have been made by Peter Fritz (+1992), a Viennese insurance clerk. Together with architecture critic Oliver Elser, he introduced 2000 the Fritz Studies Project, in which artists and architects analyzed these original model houses. All 387 model houses turned out to be designs for "yet to be built" architecture, sprung from the imagination of Peter Fritz who had a vacation home in the Vienna area.