»Der Leipziger Künstler Marcel van Beek eröffnet uns Räume, regt Diskurse an und erweitert Perspektiven. Wahrnehmbare Irritationen und Brüche, die Künstler:innen erzeugen, fordern die Sinne heraus und führen an neue Reflexionsprozesse heran.«

»Die Eröffnung der Ausstellung „Urbs Accommodata – Künstlerische Perspektiven urbaner Klimaanpassung“ ist ein besonderer Höhepunkt und diskursives Transferscharnier der Ringvorlesungsreihe „Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven und Ansätze kommunaler Klimaanpassung“.«

Alexandria Krug, Erziehungswissenschaftliche Fakultät der Universität Leipzig

»Es zeichnet das Werk des Künstlers aus, dass er das Rohe, das Unfertige und auch das Zweifelhafte nicht verschweigt, sondern reflexiv mit einfängt.
Es ist das besondere Verdienst Marcel van Beeks, gerade in diese Ambivalenzen hineinzuleuchten. Dadurch hält er zugleich Abstand zu affirmativer Klima-Kunst und lädt vielmehr ein zur kritischen Reflexion.«

Prof. Dr. Erik Gawel, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung – UFZ, Leipzig

Opening of the exhibition "Unsustainable Earth" at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ, Leipzig

Opening Speech of Prof. Dr. Erik Gawel, UFZ (excerpt)

»I find it all the more remarkable that sustainability also resonates in contemporary art. When I saw Marcel's works for the first time, I immediately thought that this had to be shown at the UFZ. And I am very grateful that this also worked out and that we are allowed to show these photo works here.

When it comes to sustainability, Art and science naturally proceed in a completely different way, but they complement each other excellently. Science makes it possible for us to know more and more about the fra-gile, even critical status of the planet. But this is precisely what can make people feel overwhelmed and frustrated. It can create that "I can't do anything anyway" feeling. Art has subtle tools against this immunisation and fatigue effect. It is about focus, about visual language, about aesthetics. Aesthetics does not only mean mere beauty, but above all - awareness of the senses. What artists can perhaps do better than others (even than us), is namely to make connections intuitively visible,  create an emotional access, and appeal to people's imagination.

Let's have a closer look at the artwork titled „Spring“. It presents a rather cleared landscape with burnt trees. Spring presents a sad picture here - marked by climate change impact, heat stress and fires. The title, of course, must recall the famous book of Rachel Carson, „Silent Spring“, from 1962. The book was, at that time, about chemicals in the environment and their toxic impact on, for instance, bird life. Here, it reveals climate change impacts on landscapes. Apart from that, we also see a meaningful landscape composition with strong atmospheric expression. And it is not coincidentally reminiscent of the equally silent compositions of famous painters like Caspar David Friedrich or Eugen Bracht, which, by means of aesthetically constructed landscape compositions, tell us of melancholy and decay. Marcel van Beek feels very connected to the painting epochs of romanticism and symbolism. And It is no art, so-to-speak, to recognise exactly this here in this artwork.

Other works present geometric or organic structures of apparent beauty. Seemingly insignificant details. Marvellous forms. And yet the photographs stand, e.g., for a problematic plastic agriculture which is becoming more and more widespread. Aesthetics and shudder are very close together here, fascinating the beholder.

The excellent works of van Beek create, as always with him, deep moods and fascinating spaces for mystery and threat, but at the same time also for grace and silent beauty. The artworks subtly reveal the dubiousness of the subject just through assumed grace of the photo composition itself.«