If there’ s an artist whose oeuvre merits the title “ creation,” it is Sebastian Stö hrer. Shaping clay— essentially, soil— he molds his “ denizens” : colorful and friendly-looking sculptural beings, some of them enhanced with sticks or branches reminiscent of limbs. Despite their air of levity and humor, they are not the products of mere momentary inspiration or a whim. It takes decades of dedicated experimentation with the kiln based on the millennia-old art of ceramics as well as expert knowledge of chemistry and physics to create such colors and shapes. Stö hrer has been called an alchemist, and indeed he has made it his mission to vindicate this researcher’ s craft, an ancestor of the natural sciences. Alchemy, like Stö hrer’ s oeuvre, combines pure rationality with coincidence and a scintilla of magic. The artist plays an intuitive and sensual game with his clay and the virtually incalculable chromaticity of the glazes— chaos, anarchy, and irrepressible urges being an integral dimension of all creation. In Stö hrer’ s “ denizens,” we encounter the embodiments of that creation: likenesses of ourselves and perhaps also heralds of a future more good-natured version.

Christoph Keller, b. 1969 in Stuttgart, Germany, was a one oft he most renowned and profiled distillers in the world. In his distillery „ Stä hlemü hle“ , located in the rolling hills oft he south german „ Hegau“ region, very close tot he Lake Constance and the Swiss border, he distilled more than 600 varieties of award winning eau-de-vie from fruit, herbs, roots, vegetables and mushrooms. Dr. Bernd Schwarze, born 1981 works ist he pastor at St. Peter's Church Luebeck, Germany. He is a scientific expert in the relationship of relgion and culture. Schwarze also works as musician, poet, and comedian. Cecily Ogunjobi, born and based in Frankfurt am Main, is a writer and student of geosciences and mineralogy. Both literary as well as geoscientifically, she works on a small scale, writing political to personal prose and poetry miniatures, and analyzing nanometer-sized structures in minerals. Her writing has been awarded literary prizes (Junges Literaturforum Hessen-Thü ringen, Treffen junger Autor*innen der Berlinerfestspiele) and is published in anthologies and magazines. As a moderator and editor for the Book Club of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt and other art and literature events. Daniel Birnbaum is the director of Acute Art, a VR production company, as well as Professor of Philosophy at Stä delschule. From 2010 until the summer of 2018 he was the director of the Moderna Museet Stockholm. Prior to this he held the position of rector of the Stä delschule between 2000– 2010. Next to his directing of the Stä delschule and Portikus, Daniel Birnbaum has been curatorially involved in biennials and projects in recent years: the 53rd and 50th Venice Biennale, the Moscow Biennials and as a committee member of the International Foundation Manifesta.