Claudia Wieser Debuts Public Art Installation at Brooklyn Bridge Park

The life and work of Claudia Wieser seems to revolve around words starting with the letter B. She’s based in Berlin. She apprenticed as a blacksmith at Bergmeister Kunstshmiede before earning her master’s in painting. Her pieces today, Modernist-inspired geometric constructions, reference Bauhaus architecture and design. And her debut public art installation is currently on view at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Called Rehearsal, it’s composed of five large-scale sculptures meant to be interacted with, as both a meeting place and a theatrical set recalling ancient Roman forums where people exchanged ideas. The structures range from 7 to 13 feet tall and are clad in over 1,500 clay tiles that Wieser hand-painted to echo the patterns of the neighborhood’s red-brick buildings and Belgian-block paving stones. “A strong influence was the music room from the 1931 Exhibition House by Mies van der Rohe, furnished with an all-over tile painting by Wassily Kandinsky,” she notes of her development as an artist. Select surfaces have different treatments: Some are fronted by polished stainless steel, which reflects visitors’ movement, while others host photographs of New York City taken either by Wieser during past trips or tourists in the 1980’s and ’90’s, along with images of historic sculptures. The artist has clearly brought her A game to DUMBO.