Time Traps at Kunsthalle Nuremberg

It’s always hard to review a venue that produces or hosts temporary exhibits, so what can I say about the Kunsthalle, Nuremberg?

It’s in a great location: part of the KunstKulturQuartier (art and culture quarter) of the city: by the train station and the crafts courtyard. In fact, a neat little beer garden — the KulturGarten — sits between the Kunsthalle and the latter, pouring nice beers at €2.90 a half-litre.

The Kunsthalle isn’t large. Several rooms tunnel off from the entrance lobby: it could house one-room exhibitions from several artists, but when we visited it was local artist Heike Baranowsky that had the run of the place.

Time Traps was the exhibition, and featured over a dozen film installations, mainly digital with one 35mm reel running on a loop. Loops and time-shifts, directional shifts and dropped frames turned up again and again, but it was a strong showing with varied subjects reinforcing ad playing with the central motifs. I noticed just two sculptures to break away from the film genre: a pink-lit pot plant that I didn’t know what to do with, and a slowly spinning set of curtains that constantly distracted you from the most active and visually arresting piece. Some visitors didn’t even realize it was moving: shuffling a few centimeters every time it brushed up against them.

[box]Entry to the Kunsthalle is included in the Nuremberg Card, or €4 per person.[/box]