LUTZENBERGER ＋ LUTZENBERGER
INNEHALTEN - Subtle Bronze Castings

This exhibition features 94 works by Susanna and Bernhard Lutzenberger. The works capture the energy and the beauty of life in withered branches, leaves and seeds, which have fallen in autumn to prepare for the new life of spring.

Partners in life and work, Susanna and Bernhard were both born in southern Germany and grew up surrounded by nature, with the lush forests, lakes, and mountains of the Alps. Having originally worked as product and interior designers, since 2000 they changed their unique field of work and started focusing on the creation and design of sacred places and rooms. They devise the concepts and designs of new churches, prayer rooms, columbaria, etc, and also reshape old churches to open them to modern life and build church altars, liturgical tools and furniture for this purpose. In their work they favor the use of natural materials such as stone, wood, metal, wax, and pigments. As a specialized and very unique artist unit, they are highly acclaimed in Europe and Japan for their work, which transcends the categories of art and design and focuses on the point where spirituality and beauty meet.

This exhibition was originally planned to open in 2020 under the title “Innehalten”, but was postponed due to the Corona restrictions. The German word “Innehalten” is translated as “pause for a while,” “stop for a moment” or “take a pause.” In a broader sense, it includes the state of “amazement,” “hesitation,” “consideration” and “awareness” as well as “inner perception.” The postponed exhibition itself is a reflection of the pause the world experienced due to the Corona pandemic.

The artists describe their work as follows:
“The theme of this work is transience, beauty in decay, pausing, light and shadow, strength and stillness.
We collected twigs, berries, capsules and rose hips. Organic finds, which have fallen down from trees and plants and dried over time. The leftovers from summer and autumn, which will go back to earth during winter and – while they finally disappear – make way for new shoots to grow in spring.
We cast the collected pieces in bronze and thus captured the moment of decay. In the furnace the original burns to dust and leaves its imprint in the plaster. This “lost form” is then filled with liquid metal in the casting process. Each individual cast retains the haptic characteristics of its original form.
The result are palm-sized bronze casts that are infinitely delicate, and yet are full of strength, dignity and presence.”

Collected in the forests near their atelier in South Germany, on the shores of Greece, or in the mountains around Kyoto, each of the 94 collected motifs is clearly labeled with the latitude and longitude of the place where it was found. Each cast is carefully stored in a wooden box with the scientific name of the plant.

Lutzenberger + Lutzenberger | Susanna Lutzenberger, Bernhard Lutzenberger
Lutzenberger+Lutzenberger is an artist unit formed  by Susanna and her partner Bernhard. Susanna was born in Traunstein in 1963. After working in different textile workshop in Germany and France, she studied textile design at the Academy of Arts in Stuttgart. Bernhard was born in Augsburg in 1958. After studying silversmithing at the State Vocational School of Jewelry and Glass in Neugablonz, he established his own metal workshop. In 1991 Susanna and Bernhard founded their common workshop Lutzenberger+Lutzenberger, based in Bad Wörishofen in South Germany. In the first decade they engaged in a wide range of creative activities from product design to art, interior design, and architecture, working mainly for museums and art galleries and hospitals.

After 2000 Susanna and Bernhard started to focus on projects that combine art and architecture, mainly in sacred spaces. They are designing and building the interiors of churches, chapels, and prayer rooms, and create murals, facades, sanctuaries, altars, liturgical furniture and liturgical tools etc. for sacred places, mainly in Europe. Nowadays they are highly acclaimed both domestically and internationally.

The following photos show a few samples of their projects.

Catholic Sacred Heart Church, Munich (2000）

Church of Saint Georg,  Freising   (2001）

Protestant Town Church, Schwabach（2015）

Church of Saint Maria Magdalena, Buchbrunn （2021）

Church of Saint Oswald, Stockach（2022）