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George Steinmann I Mindmaps. A Poetic Cosmos
With the exhibition Mindmaps - A Poetic Cosmos the gallery continues its long-standing collaboration with George Steinmann, whose work inaugurated the gallery in 2007. The Bern-based artist, musician, and researcher is one of the leading voices in an art that connects aesthetic thought with social responsibility. His Mindmaps condense knowledge, perception, and materiality. They weave art, science, and spirituality into a poetic cosmos that questions the state of our planet.
George Steinmann (born 1950 in Bern) studied painting, music, and Afro-American studies in Basel and San Francisco. Since 1979, he has realized international exhibitions, performances, and transdisciplinary projects. His works have been shown at the Pori Art Museum, the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, Helmhaus Zürich, Kunstmuseum Thun, LACE Los Angeles, the ERES Foundation Munich, the Taxispalais Innsbruck, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Museum of Contemporary Art Helsinki, and the Kunstmuseum Solothurn. For his consistent and research-based practice, he received the Meret Oppenheim Art Award from the Swiss Federal Office of Culture. In 2011, the University of Bern awarded him an honorary doctorate for his work connecting art, science, and ethics.
The Mindmaps form the core of his artistic practice. They bear titles such as The Art of Collaboration, Raising Public Awareness, or Other Sources. Through writing, lines, glazes, and natural pigments, they unfold a network of thoughts, colors, and chemical reactions. Steinmann works with natural substances such as berries, minerals, and spring water, which he collects, presses, and extracts himself. These pigments store not only color but also energy, memory, and a form of knowledge that eludes purely rational analysis.
The Mindmaps are at once notations, research fields, and poetic spaces. They address questions of sustainability, cultural memory, and ecological balance. They show that art can generate knowledge—beyond language—through the interplay of matter and mind. Steinmann understands his art as a form of inquiry equal to the natural and human sciences.
The exhibition coincides with the publication of the book Mindmaps, edited by Katrin Sperry and Isabel Zürcher, published by Hirmer Verlag, Munich.
