The Opaque Palace
The Opaque Palace unfolded as a journey through an abandoned palace, loaded with old, almost forgotten stories. For more than a decade, Wenzel has worked on a distinctive oeuvre of monumental ceramic sculptures and installations, where beauty competes with decay, figuration with abstraction, and power with destruction. During an exhibition tour, these contradictions were discussed. How can destruction be beautiful? How can a hero be tragic? Does art outlive glory?
Workshop
During the workshop, students translated visual art into physical theatre. Without much explanation and through doing and experiencing, they were rapidly given various instructions and sensory stimuli. The instructions referred to key ideas informing Anna Wenzel’s work: power, destruction, heroism, and history. During the workshop, the participants experienced how they personally relate to what motivates and surrounds them. They also explored the subtle balance between power and powerlessness and between strength and destruction.