Lucas Kalmus
Lucas Kalmus’ (*1993 DE) current research and practice focuses on concepts of place-weaving, a tender mode of space-production that takes in to account biological and non-biological lifeforms united in assemblage within contexts of cultural landscapes and land practices. Lucas’ process often incorporates public installation, drawing and writing. Moreover, he is interested in initiating and organizing sing excursions, workshops, exhibitions, talks or multi-day symposia in collaboration with artists, architects, activists and scientists in order to expand the social aspect of artistic practice and knowledge production. Based in Bremen (DE), he is currently a PhD Candidate in Artistic Research at the University of the Arts Bremen (DE) together with the Sint Lucas School of Arts Antwerpen as part of the Antwerp Research Institute of the Arts ARIA (BE).
In collectives and working groups he organised multi-day to multi-week project spaces and symposia in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Bremen. Sculptural public interventions could be found in Brussels (BE) and Bremen, while his work was shown at the 9th Sinop Biennale (TR), Tête Galerie Berlin, European Media Arts Festival Osnabrück, Schwankhalle Bremen, Weserburg Museum für Moderne Kunst Bremen, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst Bremen among others.
Following his studies in Fine Arts at University of the Arts in Bremen, Lucas studied Architecture at Sint-Lucas Faculteit Architectuur (KU Leuven) Brussels (BE) as well as at the Fakultät Architektur at Karlsruher Institut für Technologie KIT with a full scholarship by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, that he already held during his studies in Fine Arts. Lucas artistic work is complemented by experience as a self-employed craftsperson in wood construction, roofing and interior conversion.
RESUME
2025- PhD candidate at HFK Bremen in partnership with ARIA (Sint-Lucas, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp)
2023- Self-employed Artist.
2021-2023 BSc studies Architecture at KIT Karlsruhe.
2020-2021 BSc studies Architecture at KU Leuven Brussels (in dutch language) BE.
2020 Diploma of Fine Arts at HFK Bremen (passed with distinction by examiners Prof. Dr. Asli Serbest and Prof. Dr. Rosa Barba).
2014-2020 Studies Fine Arts at HfK Bremen (Class Kathrin von Maltzahn, Class Rosa Barba, Class Asli Serbest).
Publications
2024 Peer reviewer at LANDING: Edge of the Glacier. vol 1. Vilnius, LT.
2021 On Negative Space. Muhatap: Queer Ecologies. Kunsthalle Baden Baden. University of the Arts Bremen.
2020 A Continuum of Support and Resistance. Para Journal: Getting Lost. vol 1. Berlin.
2020 A Continuum of Support and Resistance. Architecture + Movement. collective zine.
2016 the book of not taking the bus. edition of 20. artists as independent publishers. collected by Zentrum für Künstlerpublikationen Bremen. part of Artists as Independent Publishers. published in Artists Books for Everything.
Projects and Events
2023 MINE- a condition. three-week daily program. UMZU project space. as part of NOTYET Collective (Noëlle BuAbbud, Farzad Golghasemi, Abd Tammaa, Gabriela Valdespino and Lucas Kalmus) with guests. Bremen.
2023 AG Felgentauben. whole-week daily program. RaumPro. BBK project space. collaboration Felix Dreesen. Bremen.
2022 Another World is Possible, single-day seminar. Architects for Future. Architekturschaufenster. Karlsruhe.
2019 Architecture and Movement, four-day symposium. collaboration with Johanna Klingler and Maximilian Steverding. initiative and planning by Lucas Kalmus. funded by Studienstiftung. Taubenschlag. Berlin.
Exhibitions and Performances
2020 Conditions of a Necessity. group exhibition. Kunsthalle Baden-Baden.
2020 (how to) situate spaces of uncertainty. group exhibition. collaboration with Farzad Golghasemi. Circa 106 Gallery. Bremen.
2019 7th Sinop Biennale, Sinopale. Here and Where, a Politics of Location. Sinop, TR.
2019 So wie wir sind 1.0. foyer redesign. opening performance. Temporary Spaces Collective. Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst. Bremen.
2019 Out Now Performing Arts Festival. public sculpture. performance. Schwankhalle. Bremen.
2019 Wild Grammar. group exhibition. EMAF. European Media Art Festival No32. INIT. Osnabrück.
2018 Ütopia Conference. lecture performance. Schwankhalle. Bremen.
2018 Atmosphärisch Instabil. group exhibition. Tête Gallery. Berlin.
2017 Oscillating Bodies. group exhibition. Galerie Flut. Bremen.
2016 Bleiche 21. group exhibition. Galerie für Gegenwartskunst Barbara Claassen-Schmal Bremen.
2016 Von Seitenlinien. group exhibition. GAK. Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst. Bremen.
2015 Outside The System All We Have Is Our Mutual Nakedness. group exhibition. Galerie Flut. Bremen
2014 Dete Artcamp. group exhibition. vacant furniture store. Bremen.
2011 Very long title. group exhibition. Zucker Club Ateliers. Bremen.
Residencies, Prizes and Scholarships
2020-2023 Second degree scholarship architecture. Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.
2021 Artist residency: Die Biest. Nürnberg.
2018-2020 Study scholarship Fine Arts. Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.
2014 Hochschulpreis. HfK Bremen. first studysemester.
Teaching, Talks and Workshops
2025 Seminar: “Assemblage of Water and Land” at University of the Arts. Bremen.
2024 Talk: “A Short Introduction to Contradicting Concepts of Permanence and Intergenerational Timeframes”. Transformations 3.0 Forum on Artistic Practices and Theory. Dauerwelle. Bremen.
2023 Workshop: “From Space-Appropriation to Place-Weaving” at MINE - a condition. UMZU Pavillon. as part of NOTYET collective.
2020 Workshop: “Was verbindet die Kunst und die Psychologie?” at Die Kunst der Erfahrung. University Witten Herdecke. Collaboration with Lukas Suryadi Ishar. Witten.
2020 Teaching assistance for Asli Serbest at Temporary Spaces Class at University of the Arts. Bremen.
2019 Tutorium: “How to open a space twice” at University of the Arts. Bremen.
PORTFOLIO
Image translation (lifted from performative bitumen drawing on road to hand drawing on paper)
2x25m and variable dimensions
The ongoing collection and drawing series reverberates off the soft gaze on motion of manual labor employed in dienstleistung. Coreography cues in boiling tar tracing the waters seasonal change of state to ice through bursting asphalt. Leaving a thick seal to resist the pressure from below. The performative drawings in the collection are being done by anonymous road workers on construction sites spanning geographical contexts such as New York City, Washington DC, Catskills, Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Brussels, Antwerp, Berlin, Bremen among others.
Image credit: Lucas Kalmus
Curated program and workshop
As part of NOTYET Collective (Noëlle BuAbbud, Farzad Golghasemi, Abd Tammaa, Gabriela Valdespino and Lucas Kalmus)
“Mine - a condition” frames a series of events conducted in and around a vacant pavillon on a central plaza in Bremen city center. The UMZU pavillon hosted the NOTYET Collective for a three week period to reside with 16 different events for free public access. Invited guests and the collective members offered workshops as well as days for screenings, readings, and listening sessions.
The program digs into the erosion of the city centers’ marketed function. Surrounded by vacant high rise buildings that used to host the desires of consumerism before being replaced by transshipment warehouses, the program’s critical engagement with extractive economies opens encounters with facetted signifiers of mining.
The collective curation has been informed by the individual notions of the members’ approaches to the topic. Lucas Kalmus’ workshop on Place-Weaving departs from an imaginary of vacant commercial zones becoming entangled in a process of commoning, which exposes them to ways of being mined for their parts and purposefulness. By shedding light on the fragmentary nature of permanent (anchored to the ground) buildings, even a screw of a gate and a grain in the mortar of a brick wall become focal points be questioned toward their next shape in the metabolism of matter.
Image credit: NOTYET
Public program at 7th Sinop Biennale (Walk, reading)
‘Embracing shores of drifting’ emerged from and merged two strains of research: on the situationist movement with its inherent aim to examine and evade strong currents in the flows of urban maps of movement through practices of dérive (french for drift) and on the qualities of autopoietic, self-metabolizing and self-reproducing systems with its implications about adaptation and collaboration in the drift of biological evolution.
The walk departed from Sinopale’s communal rotunda Hal to five different locations around the city of Sinop. Textfragments from Humberto Maturana and Guy Debord were provided and read together in English and Turkish.
The merge unravels in an exploration of the city as its own assemblage with organistic qualities while focusing on the negative space and cohesive spatial matrix all around the organs of the place. Participants found themselves stepping in the infamous minded gap usually reserved for sedimentation to settle in bare toleration corridors throughout the urban fabric of shared space and private property.
Image credit: Laura Baumann
Installation in public space (Steel scaffolding tubes, clutches, feet)
3x7x5m and variable dimensions
The five meter tall sculpture resembles the permeable, extracellular matrix of tissue. The structure acts as an amorphous body in its formation and decay at the same moment. It gathers material aesthetics from modular maintenance structures designed for temporary support in environments striving for permanence.
The installation consists of two sculptures: one located in the floodplains of the Weser and the other beside the Werdersee lake in an imaginary line bridging Theater Bremen with the former water tower ‘Umgedrehte Kommode’ to the Schwankhalle theatre providing a direct link between the city’s provision with water by the water tower for the needs of the collective body (formerly by gravity when the water tower was the highest building) and the city’s provision with art and culture for the needs of the collective mind. The work was installed for the Out Now! performing arts festival by Schwankhalle. In nearness to the river Weser with its tidal rise of up to 4 m on a regular basis, the sculpture is partly submerged in water whilst the river reaches its floodplain.
Image credit: Bertrand Cavalier
Mixed-media installation (Fabric roll, plotted drawing, light fixture)
Collaboration with Farzad Golghasemi
The piece maps the personal experience of moving to a new city. The informative shapes are derived through metadata collected over the course of one year in a city that one has never set foot on before. It unveils the actual reach of exploring new habitat and the automated channeling of travel through the urban fabric and its corridors. The drawing was produced with a 2D plotter and a felt tip pen on a fabric from the roll. “Map of 2019” is part of a group of works that were produced for the exhibition (how to) situate spaces of uncertainty at Circa 106 Gallery.
Image credit: Victor Artiga Rodriguez