MERLIN REICHART

Who is Merlin Reichart?

Reichart was born in Munich in 1991. He has lived in Hamburg for 8 years and studied design and free art at the Hochschule für bildende Künste. He is also a member of Mundhalle e.G., a group of creative professionals, craftspeople and artists who converted a former industrial hall in Hamburg, Rothenburgsort into a studio, office and workshop community at the beginning of 2019. The interim use expired at the end of 2020 and the group moved into the former Cruise Center in Hamburg's Hafen City in January 2021, again for interim use for two years. To counteract the constant precarity in the cultural scene, the group founded a cooperative with the aim of buying a suitable property and offering cheap, permanent workspace for art and craft in Hamburg, close to the city centre.

Merlin Reichart exhibition in Munich - Kunstlabor2

Place To Be - Place To Be' does not necessarily mean a physical location, but rather a situation in life, a stable status quo that can vary greatly from person to person.
The room installation here embodies a real, accessible, of these supposed places of longing. When you look inside, you are promised invitingly warm, bright light and a paradisiacal sandy beach with palm trees. But when you enter the room through the narrow, oppressive tunnel, you realise that it is not the sun that is shining, but only buzzing ceiling lamps, as is usual in open-plan offices. In addition, an air-conditioning system drones out of two exhaust shafts, which, however, does not noticeably change anything about the stuffy heat of the lamps.
On closer inspection, the beautiful view is just a photo wallpaper whose heavily pixelated motif is reflected in the room.
The ground, which is supposed to be warm, soft sand, is actually made of wobbly concrete walkway slabs. The unsteady gait on the subsoil forces one to look down again and again to avoid tripping or losing one's balance. It prevents one from exploring one's surroundings in a relaxed manner.