KLAUS HARTMANN & REINER MAHRLEIN: Kaiserslautern Calling, April 18 – May 11, 2014

Continuing the exchange of artists between Columbia and its German sister city Kaiserslautern, if ART Gallery presents an exhibition by Kaiserslautern artists Klaus Hartmann and Reiner Mährlein, who both have been represented by the gallery since it opened in 2006. The Kaiserslautern artists also will be in town for 16 days in April to create a public sculpture for Columbia’s downtown Vista district. The sculpture, a project of the Congaree Vista Guild, will be placed along Lady Street at Lincoln Street and unveiled during Artista Vista on Thursday, April 24.

            The exhibition of Hartmann’s and Mahrlein’s work at if ART will include a bronze cast of the model for the Lady & Lincoln sculpture as well as other sculptures by both artists and steel-and-granite embossings by Mährlein.

            Klaus Hartmann (b. 1960) for many years has been a prominent fixture on the art scene of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Hartmann has been, worked and exhibited in Columbia many times since 2001, the last time in 2012 as one of the creators of the a joint mural of Kaiserslautern and Columbia artists. He teaches at the Fachhochschule Kaiserslautern (the Kaiserslautern College of Applied Sciences) and has taught at the University of Kaiserlautern. Hartmann exhibits widely throughout Germany and has produced several public sculptures, for instance for the city of Kaiserslautern and the Rhineland-Palatinate Department of Culture.

Mährlein , too, came to Columbia first in 2001, and has worked and exhibited here several times since. Mährlein is a widely acclaimed artist throughout Germany and has completed several large public sculptures. He studied art at the Nuremberg Academy of Fine Arts and at the Ecole Nationale Superieur de Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. He has been in solo and group exhibitions and has participated in exchanges throughout Germany and the rest of Europe as well as Argentina. His work is in several public collections in France and Germany, including that of his hometown’s main museum of fine art, the Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern.