Martin Spengler – Creatio Ex Aliquo
The exhibition creatio ex aliquo brings together new reliefs and sculptures by Martin Spengler, created using his distinctive technique of cutting forms from blocks of corrugated cardboard. The surfaces are coated with gesso—a traditional primer for painting—and the cut edges are emphasised with graphite.
The exhibition title is derived from the Latin phrase creatio ex nihilo and the philosophical question of whether “something” can arise from “nothing.” By modifying this concept to creatio ex aliquo, Spengler negates the idea of presuppositionless artistic creation. He follows the thinking of Andreas Großmann, Scientific Director of the Forum for Interdisciplinary Research at TU Darmstadt, who states:
“Creative processes don’t start in nowhere, they don’t begin with nothing; they presuppose something, connect to something that they transform, reform, or even radically revolutionise.
After focusing almost exclusively on architecture in recent years, Spengler expands his visual vocabulary in this body of work. Alongside skyscrapers such as the Collini Center in Mannheim, a parking garage, and a tower of Cologne Cathedral, the exhibition includes images of a roller coaster, the Colosseum in Rome, and powerfully breaking waves. These works subtly invite reflection on the changes and ambivalences of German society over time and encourage engagement with contemporary questions of coexistence. Even seemingly “harmless” motifs—such as the Colosseum, crashing waves, or a stadium La Ola—lose their innocence, revealing the power of collective forces.
In his text BRD Noir, Björn Vedder describes Spengler’s art as an exploration of the interplay between social and architectural structures, with particular focus on the former Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), where Spengler—born in Cologne in 1974—grew up. Works such as the reliefs of the Collini Center and the sculpture of Cologne Cathedral exemplify this engagement.
Spengler, a master student of Karin Kneffel, carves his reliefs and sculptures from corrugated cardboard blocks and finishes the cut edges with graphite. This produces shimmering images with sharp contrasts, turning small-scale city views into labyrinths for the eye. Changing sunlight casts moving shadows across the works, whose nearly monochrome colours interact with the colour of the surrounding space. Striking visual inversions appear: the Collini Center seems to collapse or stands on the “wrong” side of the Rhine; a single tower represents the entirety of Cologne Cathedral; a roller coaster runs on grotesquely connected tracks; a parking garage becomes unusable; and the Colosseum appears pristine, as if on a postcard from long ago.
While these works initially function as sources of visual pleasure, they also operate on a deeper level, connecting personal visual memory with cultural memory and social analysis. Central among these motifs is the Rhine—“Father Rhine”—which, as Hölderlin wrote, winds through German lands, nourishing cities and people alike. Spengler’s recurring Rhine images, often paired with high-rise buildings such as the Collini Center, the Colonia (now AXA) high-rise, or the Ringturm in Cologne, reference both the era in which the artist was socialised and the social ideals associated with modernist architecture. These buildings were conceived as miniature societies—utopian living machines uniting housing, workspaces, culture, and commerce under one roof.
Once ridiculed as symbols of provincial excess, such structures are now increasingly viewed, in the context of ongoing social and economic crises, as lost civilisational achievements. Spengler’s works evoke this new FRG romanticism without succumbing to nostalgia. Their collapsing architectures and confusing spatial constructions recall the bizarre and grotesque aspects of the FRG—roadblocks, authoritarian legislation, open chauvinism, and complacency. This “FRG Noir” invites viewers to look back at history and return to the present with a renewed question: how do we want to live today?
Martin Spengler studied painting with Karin Kneffel at the University of the Arts in Bremen, sculpture with Manfred Pernice at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna as part of an Erasmus program, and later became a master student and assistant to Kneffel at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Since 2005, his works have been exhibited in museums, institutions, and galleries including the National Gallery in Prague, Kunsthalle Emden, Leopold-Hoesch-Museum in Düren, and Gustav-Lübcke-Museum in Hamm. Recent exhibitions include Museum Bensheim (2021), Museum Heidenheim (2023), and Museum Fürstenfeldbruck (2023). As part of the papier & klang festival, his works were shown at the Willy Brandt House in Berlin until September 3.
