Germany's Gaby Ludwig: Drifting in the gully of feeling

By Chandra Johan

JAKARTA (JP): In the summer of l938 in Southern France, a 10- year-old child was lying on the beach in the burning sun. His eyes were peering at the sky intently as he fantasized and soared into the ether. He traveled to the "realistic imagery" of the blue depths. On his return, he said: "I have written my name on the far side of the sky."

That child, Yves Klein, eventually became a great artist because of "the blue color". But he is better known as Yves le Monochrome because of his monochromatic works.

Gaby Ludwig, 39, shares some similarities with Klein, although in the end there are more differences. Ludwig, who is from Koln, Germany, is also spellbound by the blue depths as metaphor or analogy. Through a number of her paintings and drawings currently being exhibited at Teguh Gallery in Cilandak, South Jakarta, we are able to understand that real and pure colors represent the true self of "something".

If our eyes were less accurate, we would only see fine and soft brushes of all-pervasive ultramarine or pure yellow, which could be referred to as "sensitized image", "poetic energy" or "pure energy". However, after a more considered and careful look at these pure pigment nuances, we see chalk notches forming moving figures, dancing in the air or circling around. Often, certain parts of the figures are drawn larger, particularly around the hands or legs. It seems that Ludwig is "groping" for her emotions or feelings through color and her subjects. More to the point, she is trying to find the correspondence between color and human scale.

Colors for Ludwig have their own meanings, which are more important than achieving an aesthetic effect. This is the reason her works are not a feast of various colors; otherwise, colors would merely become an aesthetic element without meaning. Ludwig tries to reach "truth" in color, in which effort she uses pigment and not paint from a tube, and concentrates on blue and yellow. Why?

In these two colors and their various hues she seems to find a "poetic energy" from life. Is not the "sensitized energy" of the sea and sky in the end related to their blue and yellow colors? The energy of the sun and sky mean a great deal to Ludwig and humankind in general. This meditative experience shows Ludwig has been much influenced by the nuances of Asian art. In fact, for 20 years she has struggled with the art of drawing, painting and graphics, and for 15 years she wandered among the countries of Southeast Asia.

We can also see the poetic energy in the human subjects which become her center of attention. In three months spent in Indonesia, Ludwig diligently attended the rehearsals of the Gumarang Sakti dance group and made sketches. There she observed dance movements which were completely different from the Western movements she was familiar with.

These new stimuli touched her, in a way, so on her canvases began to appear sweeping brush strokes and dynamic line drawings, as if they were moving freely from her hand, expressing dancing bodies or couples embracing. This is what we find in Idola Dalam Pantun (Idol in Poetry), Nuansa Pagi Kolam Teratai (Morning Nuansa in Lotus Pool), Bagai Selaput Dara (Like a Hymen) or Cinta Dalam Dua Masa (Love in Two Times).

In these works we trace moving figures in an empty space. Ludwig's stylization is, of course, very smart and sensible, for it does not make the figures appear awkward. This sensibility is particularly felt when we trace the lines or contours of finely drawn and spontaneously created works.

While on each figure we find the hands and feet enlarged, as if Ludwig wished to invite the viewer to focus on these parts. This was done because these parts of the body, as Ludwig says, hold the humanity of humans.

"People think because they have hands and feet they are able to trace the world", she said, quoting the Greek philosopher Anaxagoras from Clazomenai, who lived from 570 to 526 B.C.

Water, the sun, hands and feet and vases often appear in Ludwig's works, as analogies as well as symbols. These things crystallize the mutual symbiosis between humans, as well as between humans and their environment. This is seen in Yang Melawan Penindasan (Who Fights Oppression). The body depicted in this work reminds us of the extreme surrealistic spirit, however, like the roots of the mangrove tree, it unites with the earth and universe.

Ludwig Ludwig began to concentrate more on creative work after she finished college. She then went on to study art and visual communication in Dusseldorf and received her diploma in l989. While there she worked with Prof. Helfrich Hagenberg, Prof. Helmut Schmidt-Rehn and Juergen Mandel.

Since then she has had a number of exhibits in Germany and abroad. Two years ago Ludwig, together with artists from the Ultimate Academy, on the invitation of the Goethe Institutes in Chiang Mai and Bangkok in Thailand, went to that country and created a number of installation works and participated in Performance Conference V. She created in 1988 a performance piece called Yellow and Blue, Blue and Yellow with Ben Patterson, one of the exponent of Fluxus Art, an art movement which caused a commotion in the 1960s.

Ludwig came to Indonesia on the invitation of Teguh Ostentrik. Her exhibition at Teguh Gallery was opened last week by Prof. Dr. Toeti Heraty Noerhadi and will run until Oct. l5.