Christiane Baumgartner and Max Klinger

To question the passage of time and to wish to slow down the world around us are human fascinations shared by many. This preoccupation is not only the subject of Christiane Baumgartner’s work, it is also embodied in her artistic process across a variety of media including woodcut prints, photography and video.

Based in Leipzig, a city famous for printmaking, the artist acknowledges the tradition she originates from, whilst developing an extraordinarily distinct practice. Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in London, she has translated glimpses of the everyday world in motion, often from video into the painstaking medium of woodcut.

Complementing Baumgartner's most comprehensive exhibition to date, Ikon will also present work by German artist Max Klinger, born in 1857, who influenced the Expressionist and Surrealist movements in the early 20 th Century. Widely acknowledged to have been the original genius of modern printmaking in Germany, he is almost unknown in Britain. Klinger's etchings demonstrate a more romantic approach, in contrast to Baumgartner's portrayal of the everyday world. A unique selection of his work, loaned from the Museum der bildenden Kunste Leipzig, can be viewed in this country for the first time.

The exhibitions are part of the initiative DsaxonyUK2005 and are s upported by the Goethe-Institut London and the Urban Cultural Programme.

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Christiane Baumgartner and Max Klinger