test | Artworks made of Ice

Contemporary Art

made of Ice

curated by Ronald Anzenberger

'About glaciers in times of global warming'

Glaciers are keystones of life. They serve as freshwater reservoirs, especially in dry periods, as habitats for specialized animal and plant species that are adapted to extreme conditions, as climate regulators thanks to their reflective surface (Alberdo effect) and much more.

According to the NASA the Antarctica is losing 150 billion tons of ice every year. Greenland is losing about 270 billion tons per year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assume that the arctic polar ice will have completely disappeared in the summer of 2040.

As a result, ice is becoming an increasingly valuable resource in nature in the future. The exhibition 'The value of ice' presents three artistic positions which deals with glacier ice in times of global warming by: Adam Sébire, Ronald Anzenberger and Jaanika Peerna.

Instead of polishing his car, in his film Iceberg Care (2024) Adam Sébire takes care of an iceberg in Norway. The freshly fallen snow is meticulously swept away with a broom and the shimmering blue ice is made to shine with a spray bottle and cloth.

Ronald Anzenberger shows a diamond made by glacial ice. In his project Ice Diamonds (2024), he produced countless rugged chunks of ice into sparkling diamonds with smooth surfaces and sharp edges, on the so-called Diamond Beach on Iceland .

In her performances Glacier Elegy (2017-2024), Jaanika Peerna confronts exhibition visitors with the question: What would you do with the last piece of ice on earth? At the same time, she shows us in an impressive way what she would make of it.