Claudia Kudinova: “On Light” – Light and Perception in the Work of Günther Uecker and Their Mediation in the Museum Context

In her research project, Claudia Kudinova investigates perspectives from art education and mediation on the work of Günther Uecker. The project is based on a central premise: As carriers of perceptual spaces, the artist’s works inherently transform the museum into a space of experience across different media. Light plays a crucial role in this process. At the threshold between immateriality and materiality, as well as between pictorial space and real space, light—and the shadow it produces—acts as an agent of visual effect within the respective exhibition context. Light is dynamic and multivalent; in this capacity, it also serves as a medium for reflecting on perception as something variable, dependent on movement, duration, attention, and inner disposition, and as something that unfolds between the work, the space, and the viewer. The central question of the research project is: How is this multivalent quality of light experienced in Günther Uecker’s artworks? This question is closely connected to the need to address the perceptual processes that are activated in the encounter with the works themselves—beyond conventional approaches centered on content and meaning. Particular emphasis is placed on the strategy of reduction that is inherent to Günther Uecker’s artistic practice. By focusing on moments of deceleration and introspection, the project examines the extent to which these moments may open up new fields of perceptual insight.

The fellowship supporting the project was awarded in cooperation with the Staatliches Museum Schwerin.