Known as a Multimedia artist and conceptionist, committed to working on large scale art projects, Hamburg’s Shuk Orani brings his B17 project to a close with a pointed observation that life and art operates in cycles. Located at Ballindamm 17, this ambitious mural project injected art into the notion of urban renovation, commercial development and architectural progress.
A work of conceptual process as much as a painterly expression, B17 offered a moment of pause during a process of change. That interjection asked viewers to consider the evolving nature of our built environment, how art exists within that frame and how the human spirit is to engage. At over 12 x. 4.5m. in size, Orani’s mural was an imposing provocation.
The labor inherent in making an artwork on such as scale was matched by the eventual removal of the mural from its architectural, but ultimately temporary, canvas. The setting of B17 invited speculation about the future – would it stay? Could it stay? Ultimately deemed temporary by processes and perspectives the artist was content to let play out, the work took on a more performative form. From conception to execution and through it’s public life, the mural was embued with only the promise of architectural permanence. That permanence not realised, it attained a new chapter. Scraped and chipped away, Orani’s expressionist brush strokes became shards of coloured plaster – architectural relics and residue of the overall performance enacted at B17. Therein, the power of the work can be felt. Growing from nothing like the birth of a star and then vanishing. Yet all in balance and with an energy felt and cosmically retained to give life to something new.
For more information, please visit ShukOrani.com and follow on Instagram @shuk_orani.
Artist Statement
“Mich beschäftigen vor allem Herkunftsfragen, Fragen von Machtordnungen, die Bedrängnis und Begrenztheit durch Systemstrukturen evozieren. Im Hinblick auf das Bedürfnis nach übergeordneten und transzendenten Synergien, untersuche ich innerhalb meiner Arbeit, wie der Schutz der Natur gelingen kann. Interessant dabei ist für mich, ihre scheinbar vollkommen andere Funktionsweise, sowie Überlebensstrategien im Vergleich zu denen des Menschen.
“Meine Kritik richtet sich an den Menschen, welcher in seiner Desorientierung nur eine mangelnde Bereitschaft zum Denken größerer Zusammenhänge zeigt, da er weder seine Gefühle abrufen kann, noch in Berührung mit seiner Intuition ist. Von der Vorstellung ausgehend, dass dieser wachsende Mangel eine drohende Reduktion der Realität bewirkt, untersuche ich als Künstler, inwiefern die farbige Materie eine, zunächst defiziente, Struktur verändern und neue Wahrnehmungsmöglichkeiten schaffen kann.
“I am primarily concerned with questions of origin, questions of power systems that evoke distress and limitation through system structures.
“With regard to the need for superordinate and transcendent synergies, I investigate within my work how the protection of nature can succeed. What is interesting for me is their seemingly completely different functioning, as well as survival strategies compared to those of humans.
“My criticism is aimed at people who, in their disorientation, show an unwillingness to think about larger contexts, since they can neither call up their feelings nor are they in contact with their intuition. Starting from the idea that this growing deficiency causes a threatening reduction of reality, I as an artist investigate to what extent the colored.”
