Michaela Kölmel

Michaela Kölmel (1956 - 2007) was a German artist and university professor from Karlsruhe. Her artistic work included drawings, sculptures, site-specific installations, and interventions in public spaces.

Life and work
From 1980 to 1986, she studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe under Prof. Hiromi Akiyama and Prof. David Lauer. She was awarded the Graduate Scholarship of the State of Baden-Württemberg and further scholarships took her to the Cité des Arts in Paris (1992). She also received a lectureship at the University of Pforzheim (1995/99) and Ahrenshoop (2000), funded by the Kunstfonds Berlin. In 2002, Kölmel became a professor at Mainz University of Applied Sciences, where she taught courses including Interior Design, Sculpture, Drawing, and Art History until her death in 2007.

Ministry of Science and Art of Baden-Württemberg style
Working in the tradition of minimalism prominent in the 1960s, Kölmel explored the complexity found in the simple and elemental. Her work examined the contrast between forms with a straightforward and unspectacular exterior and those with a mysterious, luminous interior, using such materials as highly polished copper tubes, stainless steel sheets, and mirror glass. Concept, process, and material determined her work.

Kölmel used these materials for wall- and floor-related works. She also used them in site-specific productions to connect spaces and generate unusual fields of perception (Installation MultiMediale 2 and ZKM 1992, Installation Orgelhalle 1994, Installation Galerie Rottloff, 2006). Using materials that reflect light, Kölmel created complex sensorial spaces of high intensity with simple means; she contained dense formal language that opened up difficult dialogues between the work, the viewer, and the room.

In her drawings, Kölmel preferred foil, graphite powder, and a cutting knife to conventional paper and pencil. She created arrangements of lines through cuts on the graphite surface, giving them a relief-like appearance.

Kölmel's work is part of public collections, including the Ministry of Science and Art of Baden-Württemberg, the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, and the Städtische Galerie Karlsruhe [de]. They are also in numerous private collections, such as the Museum für aktuelle Kunst - Sammlung Hurrle [de] and the collection of Reinhold Würth.

Selected exhibitions

 * 2019 "LichtSchatten", Solo Show, Karlsruhe Lukaskirche
 * 2012 "gestern-heute-morgen", Group Show, Kunstgebäude Stuttgart (GA)
 * 2011 "Spektral - Diametral", Group Show, Städtische Galerie Karlsruhe
 * 2009 Group Show, Kunstverein Augsburg,
 * 2004 "Painting and sculpture since 1960", Group Show, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe
 * 2000 "Gabriele Münter Prize", Group Show, Frauenmuseum Bonn (GA)
 * 1999 "Kunstmesse Düsseldorf", Solo Show, Galerie Rottloff
 * 1999 "Objekte", Solo Show, Galerie Rottloff
 * 1997 "Förderverein aktuelle Kunst", Solo Show, FAK Münster
 * 1996 "Michaela Kölmel", Solo Show, Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe
 * 1996 "von der Farbe zum Licht", Group Show, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe
 * 1995 Group Show, Galerie Karin Friebe Mannheim
 * 1993 "Sculptura Ulm '93", Group Show, Pro Arte Ulmer Kunststiftung
 * 1992 "MultiMediale 2", Group Show with Karlheinz Bux Karlheinz Bux, ZKM Karlsruhe