Seven Sounds, Seven Circles

Along with other major artists of his time like Joseph Beuys, Walter de Maria, or Robert Smithson, Lothar Baumgarten significantly extended the bounds of the art of the 1960s, particularly through his exploration with and in his reflections on the source of "nature." However, unlike his American colleagues who oriented themselves on the power of reality, Lothar Baumgarten challenged the Eurocentric view and, alternating between research and documentation, openly confronted the unknown site-specific "other" of a given location. Again and again he tracked down the phantom of "nature" within culture through his ephemeral, three-dimensionally materialized comments, drawings, photographs, slide projections, films, and documentary sound recordings. In long-term projects he developed presentation spaces that primarily explored different cultural systems and their specific conceptions of space and time.