Lava Man. Stories from the earth's interior

Volcanoes have a power of their own. They make the land fertile and at the same time have the potential to destroy. The closest you can get to them is to climb them and watch the earth at work, so to speak. If you understand architecture as a continuation of the earth's crust, volcanoes hold up a mirror to architecture. For ten years, Philip Ursprung, ETH professor of art and architectural history, and his team have been traveling to volcanoes and studying their impact on the environment, economy and culture.

The exhibition in the Department of Prints and Drawings builds on these journeys and develops the theme further. The Kura-tor:innen team, consisting of Berit Seidel, Linda Schädler and Philip Ursprung, go in search of clues in the collection. How were volcanoes depicted in earlier centuries and how today? Does Vulcan still resonate as a mythological figure who forged objects of art and weapons for the gods? And if so, in what form? What interactions exist between the research branches of volcanology, geology and art? In the exhibition, works from the Graphic Arts Collection are complemented by a selection of prints by the natural scientist Franz Wilhelm Junghuhn. Works of art by U5, Armin Linke, Bas Princen as well as stones and other three-dimensional geological objects are also on display.

Curator team: Linda Schädler, Graphic Collection ETH Zurich, Berit Seidel, artist and architect, and Philip Ursprung, Professor of Art and Architectural History at the Institute for History and Theory of Architecture at ETH Zurich


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