Marco Miehling - Multidiscplinary Artist

Marco Miehling
Marco Miehling is a German artist based in Europe (somewhere between London and Munich) working across sculpture and performance.

He works in a synergetic mode exploring the superposition of synthetic and natural phenomena (hybrid realities) and its alienation from nature. Synthetic phenomena correspond to everything that has come into being with the intervention of humans. Natural phenomena, on the other hand, correspond to everything that exists without human intervention: The untouched. Seeking to reframe and extend the notion of ecological awareness, Miehling’s practice suggests radical consciousness about today’s imbalance of those hybrid realities.

His object-and-body-based practice recognizes its responsibility of being a cultural mediator in an interconnected network of artist, work and an expanded conceptualisation of the site (with all its connotations). The site exists as both a place with physical attributes and as an accumulation of broader socio-political and ecological processes, regardless of whether the site is digital or physical, urban or rural, inside or outside, public or private.

Temptations 2.0 -
Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer
6th Edition
Fulmer, UK
1/5/2022 -1/10/2022

Suspended in a pale green aluminium industrial boxed frame, a piece of copper appears flayed and stretched by tension cables. This copper element with its suggestions of elemental iconography was originally shown in Canary Wharf in 2021, where it mellowed, absorbing patina from the elements there. The surrounding pale green aluminium framework nods subtly to, and in harmony with, a natural outside setting, creating another tension from its own history as a standard fabricated shelving unit, that is then specifically adapted for this piece. Here is a trace history at play.

Searching for Belonging
Spazio Norbert Salenbauch
Venice, ITA
2021

Both, Marco Miehling’s sculptural practice and his modes of living, have been concerned with an idea of ‘belonging-in-transience’, driven by a dual desire to be rooted in a particular location and to embrace the fluidity of nomadic movement on the other. The exhibition Searching for Belonging is informed by this duality.
The fragility of belonging somewhere to someone/something embraces a peak in an intertwined world, when people are not only occupying one place, but when they are inhabiting multiple places with multiple relationships.

Robin is Looking for Love
72 x 33cm, Carrara Marble, Stainless Steel
2021

Elia is Looking for Love
72 x 33cm, Carrara Marble, Stainless Steel
2021

Leslie is Looking for Love
72 x 33cm, Carrara Marble, Stainless Steel
2021

I Find My Way Around
Moving Image, 30min, One Take
2020

Let it Go #1
49 x 30cm, Bronze & Copper Pigment on Paper
2021

Let it Go #2
71 x 51cm, Bronze Pigment on Paper
2021

A Guide to not getting Lost
49,5 x 35cm, Passivated Mild Steel
2021

One or the Other
Variable Dimensions
2021

Marco Miehling - Searching for Belonging

Temptations
On the other Hand
Curated by BrookeBenington
Commissioned by Canary Wharf, London
London, UK
2021

Copper, Stainless Steel, Powder coated Mild Steel, Shackles, Cable Wire, Turnbuckles

In ever-changing surroundings, everything comes and goes surreptitiously. While the transitions of change and seasons are smooth and blurry, inevitable, these transitions slip through our senses and remain unseen. The work captures these changes. The surrounding forces of nature – sun, wind, and rain –, are channeled through the installation, leaving marks and traces on the centerpiece out of copper. Over time, the work becomes an archive of its natural surroundings. The work – a reminder to see, hear, and perceive – invites us to slow down and accept, that everything is change

With artworks by Olivia Bax, Martin Boyce, Jodie Carey, Cedric Christie, Benjamin Cohen, Alexandre da Cunha, Luke Hart, Simon Linington, James Lomax, Yeni Mao, Anna Gonzalez Noguchi, Nathaniel Rackowe, Victor Seaward & Amy Stephens

Yet, Untitled
Recreational Grounds: Offsite
Thames-side Gallery; London, UK
2021

Variable Dimensions
Stainless Steel, Expander Rope, Shackles

Photos by Ben Deakin © Recreational Grounds

Sections: Since 2020
Collaboration Archive between Marco Miehling (GER) & Jessica Doucha (SA)
The project is an initiative to investigate methodologies to enable different artists from different locations to work together without travelling from one place to another. It brings together artists to enhance cultural exchange in the context of political fragility and ecological awareness. Together, we explore the possibilities of reducing the ecological footprint of artistic collaboration and of finding alternative ecologically aware modes of working that allow for the coexistence of human and nonhuman actors.

The first iteration of the project started at the Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer in 2020. The next iteration will start soon in South Africa at the Nirox Foundation in collaboration with the Johannesburg-born performance artist and Alexander Technique teacher Jessica Doucha (www.jessicadoucha.com). More collaborations will follow...

First Iteration: July 2020
Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer, UK
BrookeBenington Gallery, UK
www.brookebenington.com

Second Iteration: May 2021
In Collaboration with Jessica Doucha (SA)
www.jessicadoucha.com
Nirox Foundation, South-Africa
www.niroxarts.com

PERFORMANCE REHEARSAL ONE. Nirox Sculpture Park. 10/02/2021.
Improvisation Jessica Docuha (SA) with Cécile Lassonde (FR)

How does one move, when we are told we cannot move? Time of internal movement and awareness. Forced to stay, hold tight, held by a constructed boundary, confined by invisible walls, constructed with mind made limitations, parameters of personal, physical, social, spacial and distant. Deluded by old notions of human connection. The ground is my support, gravity my companion. The present moment is my breath. Seeking an equilibrium. Between active rest while in motion. Oscillating between polarities. Where is the centrifugal force that spirals upwards, outwards, inwards, towards. I cannot see, I am seen. Here, I cannot touch. I am touched.

Soundtrack: Composed by Lenny Dee Doucha (ZA). Sounds collected in Seydisfjordur, Iceland, 2019-2020. Reading by Jessica Doucha. Copyright. 2021.

I Find My Way Around | Trailer
Art Biesenthal
2020

Moving Image
30min, One Take

Whereas the local takes place in the territory of a specific place, time, and culture, the global emancipates itself from this specificity, attaining what is described as universal validity.

Over the course of his artist-residency at Art Biesenthal, Miehling has been developing the installation and the performance on site in the context of Biesenthal. The performers explore the relationship of the local and the global (and the attraction of moving between the two). The installations–enhanced by the tension of the elastic ropes–create new physical circumstances for the performers. During the performance, they go through various stages of the development of movement: Lying, turning on the side, rolling, creeping on the belly and on all fours, getting up in the vertical, sitting, standing up, walking up on their own, …

Conception & Direction by Marco Miehling
Performed by Ana Purwa, Jennifer Kytka, David Sargsian
Photography by Matthias Knebl

Do‘s, Don‘ts and Donuts
Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer, UK
Cabin Gallery

Do‘s, Don‘ts and Donuts #1
Passivated Mild Steel
80cm x 40cm x 1cm
2020

Do‘s, Don‘ts and Donuts #2
Passivated Mild Steel
80cm x 40cm x 1cm
2020

Marco Miehling - Do‘s, Don‘ts and Donuts

A Tree is a Big Plant with a Stick Up in the Middle (Nirox SA, 2019)
Power of Site Exhibition
NIROX Sculpture Park, South Africa

The course of humankind periodically pivots due to a moment of insightful genius: a lightning strike – or perhaps the friction of two stones – was once transformed into the first controlled fire, a critical evolutionary landmark in the development of society.

Predating the year 2000, an oak tree in the middle of the Nirox Sculpture Park was hit by a lightning strike. Many years afterwards in 2016 – during a tumultuous storm with strong winds and rain – the oak fell weaken by the electrical discharge.

Variable Dimensions
Oak Tree, Mild Steel, Swivel Eye Bolts, Dyneema Rope

Marco Miehling - A Tree is a Big Plant with a Stick Up in the Middle (Nirox SA, 2019)

The River was Dammed to Form a Lake
Selfridges London Artblock Commission in Partnership with Yorkshire Sculpture Park
2019

The River was Dammed to Form a Lake was filmed in the woodlands of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, depicts a series of performative explorations of the threshold between the physical and non-physical.

Conception & Direction by Marco Miehling
Performed by Luca Bosani
Photography by Matthias Knebl

Marco Miehling - The River was Dammed to Form a Lake

A Tree is a Big Plant with a Stick Up in the Middle (London)
Selfridges London Artblock Commission in Partnership with Yorkshire Sculpture Park
2019

The installation at Selfridges shows the tree trunk under transformation, a process by which the object is converting into another form and context. By transforming the tree trunk from an object of nature (a tree) to an object of contemplation (an artwork), the work has different inherent purposes. The tree trunk’s native surroundings remain, whilst a geographical de-contextualisation occurs.

The tree trunk, removed as a result of contracting a disease, is held in place by ropes bolted to the plinth, creating a perpetual state of tension. In this context, the plinth becomes a functional part of the artwork. It is integral to resisting the physical forces of gravity created by the installation’s inclined construction and causes the tree trunk to remain motionless, despite it appearing to never fully rest. The plinth is no longer solely a physical support structure, rather, it becomes an active and enabling part of the work.

Variable Dimensions
London Plane (Platanus x hispanica) from Hyde Park London, Mild Steel, Swivel Eye Bolt, Dyneema Rope

Marco Miehling - A Tree is a Big Plant with a Stick Up in the Middle (London)

Part II: An Arrangement in Two Halves, a Bench in Two Parts
Marco Miehling & James Fuller
William Benington Gallery, London
Co-curated by Lily Brooke
2019

Marco Miehling (left)
Formations (Intersection #1-3)
Stainless Steel, Mild Steel

Marco Miehling (right)
Formations (Device #1)
Stainless Steel, Mild Steel

James Fuller (back)
Out of circulation I
Zinc coated steel, Coloured Poly-straps, crimps

Marco Miehling & James Fuller (floor)
Bench #1 + #2
Packaging Foam

James Fuller (front)
Out of circulation II
Zinc coated steel, White Poly-straps, crimps

Marco Miehling (backspace)
Formations (Device #2)
Stainless Steel, Mild Steel

Marco Miehling (toilet gallery)
Formations (2018 Holder #4)
Mild Steel, packaging foam

Image credits: Corey Bartle-Sanderson, courtesy of William Benington Gallery

Marco Miehling - Part II: An Arrangement in Two Halves, a Bench in Two Parts

Part I: An Arrangement in Two Halves, a Bench in Two Parts
Marco Miehling & James Fuller
William Benington Gallery, London
Co-curated by Lily Brooke
2018

The single components are kept in an in-between state of becoming, neither being solely material nor fixed individual works. The unified floor-based sculpture is composed of the separate component elements that reference potential functionality of the objects. The art handling foam used for this project allows this potential for function but also for flexible new forms.

Variable Dimensions
Mild Steel, Stainless Steel, Packaging Foam
2018

Marco Miehling - Part I: An Arrangement in Two Halves, a Bench in Two Parts

This is a stone stacking exhibition
Nirox Foundation, South Africa
Collective Exhibition
Marco Miehling & Michael Mieskes
2018

Single forms are scattered around seeking for their (allocated) place. By putting them into an appropriate relative position with other forms, they generate physical relationships of inter-dependence; they correlate and superimpose, working together as an organisation of related parts in an interconnecting network.
The single forms are an outcome of an investigation within a limitation of spatial and material conditions – a simultaneous process of aesthetic discovery and an experiment with selected and excavated material. The forms are stacked on top of each other building a new order of elevation. Through this, they create a system of vertical-arrangements, a stratum, consisting of layers within a new arrangement of authority. The results are upright hybrid structures of transience form based on a collective process of action and reaction.

soil object
22 x 22 x 2 cm
soil, cement

pigment (1-3)
150 x 60 cm
glas, pigment, oil (each)

stack 1
45 x 22 x 15 cm
plaster, bricks

angle and object
47 x 47 x 3 cm
plaster, steel

inside the excavation was the bone of some huge creature
62 x 44 x 17 cm
plaster, concrete, bricks

rod
various dimensions
steel

platform with objects
30 x 88 x 6 cm
plaster, concrete

bench with object
various dimensions
plaster, PVC, concrete, bricks

stack 2
25 x 23 x 17 cm
plaster

elephant leg
35 x 14 x 14 cm
concrete

holder (1-3)
100 x 6,5 x 2 cm (each)
steel, screws

offset (1-4)
100 x 22 x 0,5 cm (each)
steel

welcome
70 x 15 x 5 cm
concrete

Marco Miehling - This is a stone stacking exhibition

There was Nowhere to Sit PT.II+III
I’m falling between two Stools
Platform Southwark; London
2018

At the very short moment of the act of falling, an object secedes from its former allocation and exists in transition. The fallen object dissipates in a multiple variety of forms, entailing a wide span of assertions. Inexorable, the transition breaks off physical parameters.

Bankside, London - The Transition Zone
Once outside the city walls and its jurisdictions, medieval Bankside was a notorious pleasure district. Bankside was known for pleasure and well-being with brothels, bear-baiting and bull-baiting. This area ambiguously existed in an alternate state: Initially, these places were licenced; later on, they were banished, but continued without any authority.

1 - I felt so dizzy
Variable Dimensions
Mild Steel, Steel Wire Rope, Shackles, Eyebolts
2018

2 - She cut the cake in half
Variable Dimensions
Latex Rope, Beam Clamps, Shackles
2018

3 - He stumbled on a brick and fell
Variable Dimensions
Mild Steel, Trunk
2018

Marco Miehling - There was Nowhere to Sit PT.II+III

Among Her Leisure Occupations is Birdwatching
Royal Society of Sculptors Spotlight Award
Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer; UK
2018

Birdwatching is an occupation, trying to see what you hear and hear what you see. The flights and calls of birds can foretell the future!

Among Her Leisure Occupations is Birdwatching opposes the structures of vacillation and intrinsic doubt of its construction. Its physical form is manifest in a fragile state, and by that, the settings produces a state of venture.

The installation does not depend on an exclusively retinal assessment and activity. Rather, it is prescribed by its construction of holding itself together and its proportion system referencing The Vitruvian Man.

Among Her Leisure Occupations is Birdwatching I
Variable Dimensions
Mild Steel, Cable Winch Pullers, Swivel Eye Bolts, Steel Cable Wire
2018

Among Her Leisure Occupations is Birdwatching II
Variable Dimensions
Mild Steel, Cable Winch Puller, Eye Bolt, Latex Rope, Sling
2018

Marco Miehling - Among Her Leisure Occupations is Birdwatching

The Boatswain’s Reclaim
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK
2018

His name escapes me, but I remember him as a very pleasant, easy going, well built, physical light-haired man. He wasn’t a boyfriend, but a companion, who offered to take me sailing.
(Cherry McKee, Drama Student at Bretton Hall College from 1965-68)

The space is occupied – in the sense of entering a place without authority, and often forcibly. As a consequence, the visitor’s movement is limited: the boathouse is blocked by the installation itself. Only the retinal observation of the installation is left behind; only imagination remains. Rather than a physical, three-dimensional experience, the installation becomes a non-physical, two-dimensional, experience.

The boathouse was built next to the Lower Lake before the Yorkshire Sculpture Park was founded in 1977. Over the years its function has adapted to serve a range of activities and practical functions for the boatswain and others. Today, the boathouse stands as a site of pause and contemplation, both for the working Artist in Residence and as a breathing space for exhibitions.

Variable Dimensions
Mild Steel, Steel Wire Rope

Marco Miehling - The Boatswain’s Reclaim

There was Nowhere to Sit PT.1
Platform Southwark; London
2018

Physical spaces are known to us as a continuous area, marked by dimensions of height, depth, and width. All things exist and move within these coordinates; within this homogeneous expanse and native surrounding.

There was Nowhere to Sit PT. I - PT. III is a series of three exhibitions presented by German Artist Marco Miehling as part of the Illuminate Productions artist-in-residence at Platform Southwark
For the first event Archetype Triptych, Marco Miehling presents three works responding to former works: Withdrawn from their initial site-responsive location, the works exist in the absence of previous ordering principles. Each work has been reconstructed: earlier characteristics are replaced with unique archetypes – a primitive mental image inherited from a previous form. Deprived of their individual contexts they are remnants of a past existence.

We pulled the Door shut behind me.
Dimension: 240 x 130 x 12,6 cm
Mild Steel, Linseed Oil, Rope, Cable Winch
2018

We Found a Shelted Cove and dropped Anchor for the Night.
Variable Dimensions
Mild Steel, Linseed Oil, Rope
2018

We rolled past endless Rows of Trees.
Dimension: 240 x 130 x 10 cm
Mild Steel, Linseed Oil, Rope
2018

Marco Miehling - There was Nowhere to Sit PT.1

A Tree is a Big Plant with a Stick Up in the Middle
Royal College of Art; London
2017

A tree grows thicker year by year; it is always in a transitional moment: it changes, adapts and grows.

A Tree is a Big Plant with a Stick up in the Middle exposes a tree trunk from Green Park, London in a transitional state. The work is under trans- formation, a process by which the object’s nature or appearance is converting into another form.

For the first iteration of the work, the tree trunk was positioned on two concrete ramps at the Royal College of Art, where it was held in place with ropes attached to the building. The single components formed a hermetically-closed construction, holding itself together. After the exhibition, the tree trunk was returned to Hyde Park, although not as an object of nature, instead as an object of functionality. It was further transformed into a memorial bench – in remembrance to the first iteration – that is permanently installed in Hyde Park.

By transforming the plane tree trunk from an object of nature, to a functional object within exhibition and public settings, one object can have different inherent purposes. For each iteration of the work, the underlying logical structure remains the same as the appearance, shape and functionality changes.

360cm x 90cm
London Plane (Platanus x hispanica)
Green Park, London

109cm x 56cm x 42cm
Reinforced Concrete

7m
Dyneema Rope

Swivel Eye Bolt
2 Ton Breaking Load (each)

Marco Miehling - A Tree is a Big Plant with a Stick Up in the Middle

The Omnibus Project
Galerie der Künstler; Munich
2016

Omnibus is a collective project founded in 2016 by artists Marco Miehling, Michael Mieskes, Fabian Ketisch and Patrick Ostrowsky. The project is focused on developing works of art that are dissociated from the artist’s individual practice. Omnibus is concieved to work for a temporary period of time and together with various artists from different locations and countries. The collective project responds to an Exhibition space’s demands and solely develops site-specific works of art.

For the first time in March 2016, the artists came together as Omnibus while collaborating in a workshop in Athens, Greece. Inside the workshop, the group developed the concept for the Exhibition: ’Omnibus3000’. The Exhibition took place in June 2016 at the Galerie der Künstler in Munich, Germany.

Bench
2522cm x 125cm x 83cm
Concrete, Steel, Multiplex
2016

Scratchings (various artists)
variable dimensions
Glas
2016

Post
950mm x Ø100mm
Plaster
2016

Convex Mirror
Ø244mm
Stainless Steel (cnc-lathe)
2016

Sundial
1500mm x Ø35mm
Aluminium
2016

Soil
4,14ton
Humus
2016

Advertising boxes
820mm x 1020 x 130mm
Multiplex, Wood
2016

Kiosk
197cm x 250cm x 7cm
Steel
2016

Prellbock
400cm x 30cm x 30cm (Wood)
849cm x 12cm x 12cm (Steel)
2016

Cowley Manor Arts Award 2016
450mm x 75mm x 75mm
Bronze
Edition: 5

400mm x 283mm x 80mm
Copper
Edition: 1

Aramid Rope

Marco Miehling - Cowley Manor Arts Award 2016

Cowley Manor Arts Award 2016
450mm x 75mm x 75mm
Bronze
Edition: 5

400mm x 283mm x 80mm
Copper
Edition: 1

Aramid Rope

On 21st April 2016, Marco Miehling won the fifth Cowley Manor Arts Award with Untitled (Nature), which comprised a bronze cleat connected to a sunken copper object by rope. A work which explores the merging of space controlled by man with the unspoiled space of nature. Miehling elaborated on the ideas behind this exhibit, explaining that it ‘emphasises the relation between geometry and nature; between the ordered and the unordered; between the presence and the absence.’ Miehling’s Untitled (Nature) will be permanently displayed in the grounds of Cowley Manor, alongside the winning sculptures from previous years.

Exhibition ‚Cowley Manor Arts Award 2016‘

Untitled
Komödie der Vereinfachungen
Kunstarkaden; Munich
2015

1500cm x 0,15cm x 0,15cm
Cable winch, Steel, Arduino, Bungee Rope