Thomas Baumhekel and Songwen Sun-von Berg in conversation with curator Dr. Johannes Rößler

The art historian and curator Dr. Johannes Rößler speaks with the artists Thomas Baumhekel (Dresden) and Songwen Sun-von Berg (Berlin). How do we approach art of Romanticism today as one of the most important movements in German art history?  How do artists perceive the works by Caspar David Friedrich (1774—1840) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832) from both German and Chinese perspectives?

Thomas Baumhekel incorporates the Far Eastern calligraphic writing system to depict motifs found in Caspar David Friedrich’s works. In reference to the two Friedrich pieces from the Hegenbarth Collection, Baumhekel created two large-scale works by writing the calligraphic characters for ‚Forest‘ and ‚Root n large sheets of paper using broad brushstrokes of ink. His third work in the current exhibition is a recent collage, ‚Golden Harp Hotel‘ (2024), which depicts the historic wellness hotel in Teplitz (Teplice, Czech Republic), where Caspar David Friedrich recuperated from a stroke during the summer of 1835. The artist adorned the windows of the hotel sketch with postage stamps featuring prominent guests of the hotel, including Friedrich, Ludwig van Beethoven, and cosmonauts.

Songwen Sun-von Berg draws with ink on soft Chinese paper and depicts motifs that oscillate between figuration and abstraction. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s poetry has fascinated the artist, who was born in China, for many years and plays a significant role in her work. Her minimalist landscape depictions exude a poetic atmosphere, yet her focus is not on the mere representation of nature.

Stimmungsvoll wirken ihre minimalistischen Landschaftsdarstellungen, bei denen es der Künstlerin nicht um die Abbildbarkeit der Natur geht. Through the restrained gestures of the reed pen, with which she creates dots, small circles, or individual lines on the paper, she crafts graceful compositions that allow for generous interpretation. This distinctive visual language makes Sun-von Berg’s work unmistakable. Mounted as a scroll painting, she created three Heavenly Landscapes in 2012/2013, as well as a moonlit nocturnal landscape, inspired by J. W. von Goethe’s poem of the same name, To the Moon.

Using similar technical and formal means, both artists engage with key figures of German Romanticism in their own unique ways — one with the artistic work of Friedrich, the other with the literary oeuvre of Goethe.

Short Biographies

Songwen Sun-von Berg was born in 1968 in Shanghai, China, and received a traditional Chinese education in calligraphy and drawing. She initially studied engineering before moving to Berlin in 1991, where she continues to live and work. In Berlin, she pursued studies in Sinology and Fine Arts.

Her works are part of public collections, including the Museum of Asian Art at the National Museums in Berlin, the German Federal Foreign Office, the Wemhöner Collection, and the Hurun Art Foundation in China, as well as numerous national and international private collections.

More information: www.sunvonberg.de

Instagram: @songwen.sunvonberg

Thomas Baumhekel was born in 1963 in Löbau, Saxony. He studied painting and graphic arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden. He lives and works in Dresden and Pratzschwitz. Initially working with Cyrillic letters, he replaced them with Chinese characters in the early 1990s. After discovering a Japanese textbook in 2009, Baumhekel began incorporating Japanese characters into his works.

His works are part of public collections, including the Art Fund of the Saxon State Government, the Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden, the Museum of East Asian Art in Berlin, the Museum of Applied Arts in Frankfurt, the Städtische Galerie Dresden, and the Hegenbarth Collection Berlin.

More information: www.thomasbaumhekel.de

Instagram: @thomas.baumhekel

PD Dr. Johannes Rößler is a scholar of art and literature. He teaches at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and conducts research on the art of the Goethe era. In 2024, he co-edited ‚The Complete Letters and Writings of C. D. Friedrich‘.

Together with Johannes Grave, Annette Ludwig, and Christoph Ohrt, he co-curated the exhibition ‚C. D. Friedrich, Goethe, and Romanticism in Weimar‘. At the invitation of the Hegenbarth Collection Berlin, he curated the exhibition Caspar David Friedrich — Found in Translation.

More information: Friedrich Schiller University Jena / Johannes Rößler

To attend the artist talk please RSVP to
030 23 60 99 99 or kunstvermittlung@herr-hegenbarth-berlin.de
The admission is free.