With his light installations, the 1959-born artist immediately intervenes in public and social life. Sometimes he also uses disco balls or reflective materials, more often film and photography. Important foundations of his art, however, include not only the technical equipment but also the immaterial qualities of light. It is an aesthetic sensation and a symbol of enlightenment, knowledge, and awareness. The particular intensity of the light work unfolds at the intersections of public space and public action.
In 1984, Kuball began to work on site-related projects and to experiment with various techniques, where the living environment always played a significant role in the artistic concept. Besides the history and art history of a place, alongside architecture and urban planning, the individual person, their perception and movements, as well as society itself are central to Kuball's art. "I do not want to subject public space to economization," says Mischa Kuball.
From the very beginning, it has been the resistant forms of artistic practice that excite Kuball. For the artist sees himself as a seismograph for the socio-political sentiment of a particular era. Artists like Michael Asher and Daniel Buren brought the "institutional critique" to its first bloom in the 1960s. They influenced the young Kuball's decision to not primarily want to make art for museums but to conquer public space.
One of Kuball's major temporary participatory works was "Megazeichen" at the 23-story Mannesmann skyscraper in Düsseldorf (1990). Its inconspicuous façade made of window squares was rhythmically illuminated by Kuball for six weeks at night with horizontal and vertical light bands. This was made possible through a very simple intervention: Kuball simply left the lights on in selected offices and hallways. The employees of the company participated in this abstract work, the full brilliance of which only became apparent at the end. They, who worked there, were the ones who brought the artwork into being.
Was it difficult to motivate people to participate in this experiment? "Not at all. The initially rather indifferent approval," the artist says, "gradually transformed into enthusiasm. Suddenly, the workplace gained a new quality for the employees. People turned around once more when they went home in the evening. Too bad that Mannesmann had just shut down the site in Rheinhausen at that time and many people lost their jobs."
Kuball, who has been a professor of holography and light art at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne since 2007, is happy to answer questions about his work, as he knows that there are sometimes discussions needed. Some works (such as the Bauhaus Block, Dessau 1992) refer more to aesthetic qualities, to a visible history of certain traditions, which are dissolved, paraphrased, repeated, and analyzed in light. Others focus on the immaterial, on collective and personal experiences, memories, narratives. Mischa Kuball as a person appears in the works only as a contact person offstage, as a catalyst. His involvement consists of creative strategies, artistic technique, and empathy.
At the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1998, it was favela residents who exchanged an old lamp for a new one (Private Light/ Public Light). In 2010, it was residents of the Ruhr area who, in exchange for a lamp, shared the story of their migration and their arrival in Ruhr area society (New Pott / 100 Lights / 100 Faces ). These works, which give people an image and a voice and thus perforate the boundary between art and life, arise from the impulse to "reintegrate art into everyday life. Because I am always interested in surfaces of discourse".
Often, it is local residents who are directly exposed to light art over a longer period. The immediate neighbors of the Stommeln synagogue in Pulheim, for example, who advocated for the art with their consent, were not only exposed to the dazzling light with which the artist illuminated the synagogue from the inside ("Refraction House", 1994) but also to the fears that this illumination would make the site an excellent target for anti-Semitic vandalism. But "the people stood up to the Nazis with their courage. The magical circle of people was a shield."
