Potato Head meets Art Activist liina klauss

Potato Head and Art Activist Liina Klauss Draw Attention To Ocean Plastics with an Installation of Salvaged Flip-Flops

The large-scale artwork launches Saturday, 19 May at the entrance to Potato Head Beach Club

This May, Potato Head will shed light on the ecological harm caused by the world’s most ubiquitous form of footwear: the flip-flop. Millions of pairs of the synthetic shoe wash ashore around the globe each year, and as a brand surrounded by paradisal beaches, Potato Head is determined to draw attention to the serious issue of ocean plastics through a colourful installation of salvaged sandals.

In its ongoing mission to ‘provide good times and do good in the world,’ Potato Head has teamed up with award-winning German art activist Liina Klauss to demonstrate the reality of marine pollution. The artist has created a large-scale installation constructed from over 5,000 plastic flip-flops, all picked up along the shores of Bali’s west coast. Klauss and a small team of helpers amassed the large volume of shoes in a series of six beach clean-ups, while the artwork itself took weeks to build.

“I want to show people a different perspective on what we consider ‘rubbish,’” says Klauss. “Everything we throw away comes back to us (via the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the soil we grow crops and raise animals on). Flip-flops are just one example; there is potential within all these materials we waste and consider worthless."

To realise this project—a rainbow-hued structure that takes the shape of an ocean wave—Klauss collaborated with two Ubud, Bali-based initiatives. Multi-disciplinary firm IBUKU designed and built the frame from sustainably harvested bamboo, while POTATO HEAD FAMILY Jl. Pantai Pererenan No.149 Pererenan, Bali +62 361 907 8108 the Innovation Lab at Green School supplied a ‘thread’ made entirely from melted- down plastic bottle caps for which to attach the sandals.

The work is installed at the entrance to Potato Head Beach Club from 19 May and on view throughout the 2019 summer season. 

encyclopedic works: a system of colours

squares of colour

which i paint earnestly, patiently, repeated

one of top of each other

colour coordinates in an intuitive grid

spontaneous at first

then more and more conscious

of the interdependance, the correlations and effects 

each colour has upon the other

constructs, towers, bridges

as if playing with building blocks 

different hues, tones and textures

my attempt to sort the infinite 

some photos from 'time being'

'time being' - a short tour

thank you. thanks to everyone who came yesterday and shared this special moment with me: it was the first time that i filled an entire gallery with my soul, and the first time in hongkong to actually say: hello here i am! 

this is a short video for all those who couldn't make it to my exhibition. 

thanks especially to kate and abid who are running the beautiful timeandspace.hk gallery. a big thank you also to lillian and betsy from winenthingshk.com for the sparkly and the perfect service. and thanks without words to my husband who gives me the inner and outer space to persue the art that is in my heart. and to my chilrden who try their best to do the same.

'time being'

'Time Being'

Time & Space presents Time Being, the first solo exhibition of German artist Liina Klauss opening on April 17 and running through to April 24.

Concerned with the visualization of time and influenced by Berlin street art, Klauss uses derelict paper and yellowing book pages as a canvas for her mixed media pieces. Through layers of slowly fading colours and ink on paper she creates a direct experience of the transience and impermanence of life.

For Klauss, the medium is as important as the painting itself: yellowed pages of an art encyclopedia make up the historical context with drawings and hues of colour representing the vibrant present. The artist combines water colours and ink with natural hand mixed paints and pigments such as clay or vegetable dyes.

Klauss intuitively uses shades of colours that are sensitively stacked into imaginary columns and correlations. This constructed network of colours and tones fade into the colour of the paper itself, leaving nothing but the subtlest trace.

As Klauss puts it: 'I'm expecting a certain sensitivity from the viewer. Even though I'm making the artwork, I'm doing nothing but pointing towards a reality that the viewer has to see and feel and experience within him or herself. Art is happening as much on the paper as it is happening through and within the viewer.'