From 1978-1988 Barbara Benish had a small clothing company in Los Angeles and Hawai’i, named Baba Designs. The T-shirts, which she silk-screened and hand-painted, were 100% cotton, in an era when it was increasingly difficult to find non-synthetic materials. Her research into the production (farming), manufacturing (labor), and distribution (global transportation systems) of cotton, led her to eventually search out other greener alternatives, which at that time were slowly coming into the market.

Years later, Benish would work with a colleague at the United Nations, Michael Stanley-Jones, on the Safe Planet campaign, which supported and promoted “safe products” for consumers, free of hazardous chemicals and waste. One of the projects was to inform the public on fast fashion, and support alternative, locally based, organic textiles.

About Barbara Benish

Artist Barbara Benish (b. USA) moved to Czechoslovakia in 1993 after completing a year as a Fulbright scholar in Prague. Benish has exhibited internationally in over 40 solo shows and has been featured in venues including MoMA PS1, U.N.E.S.C.O. Headquarters in Paris and the Venice Biennale. Her work is represented in public and private collections, including the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Stadtgeschichtliche Museen in Nürnberg, Germany. Benish is the founding director of ArtMill, a small eco-art center/farm that is an extension of her social art practice. Benish divides her time between SW Bohemia, and her studio in California.

Later, and at the Youth Summit of the United Nations in New York City (2019), Benish met with African designers who were representing the UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion at UNEP. The thrust is to detox our culture from unsustainable models of fashion that pollute our ecosystems, and begin to re-create local structures for ethical consumption choices.

Benish’s series, Nurdles (2020-21) and Microplastic Drawings (2022), explore the cell structures of micro-plastics and human biology, which are increasingly intertwined and inter-polluted. Her book, Form, Art, and the Environment, Engaging in Sustainability, contains further insight into her research. Particularly relevant to Rhine River Requiem is her chapter on plastic pollution art.

Classical Guitarist Julián Restrepo Performs All in Twilight by Tōru Takemitsu

The video included features galerie PLUTO Summer 2019 musician, Julián Restrepo, performing the third movement of All in Twilight by Tōru Takemitsu on a Götz Bürki guitar. Restrepo played Takemitsu’s piece in a galerie PLUTO July 2019 performance inspired by Marina Moevs' PLUTO exhibition and the works of composer, Robert Moevs.

Video: Musik im Blick, Emilie Fend; Guitar and audio: Götz Bürki. Special thanks to the Evangelische Kirchen Gemeinde Jüchen.

Healing Spaces: Sen Sound and Hospital Rooms in Conversation

In September 2020, galerie PLUTO brought together two pairs of remarkable innovators, Yoko K. Sen and Avery Sen of Sen Sound and Niamh White and Tim A. Shaw of Hospital Rooms. Collectively, these individuals are using art to change the visual and aural landscape of healthcare spaces. PLUTO director, Dr. Jeremy Wasser moderated a discussion that centered around how improving the sensory experience of hospital spaces can impact patient well-being and improve clinical outcomes.

Sen Sound

September 2020

Sen Sound is a human-centered audio design studio with a mission to transform the sound environment in hospitals. The team is composed of sound designers, musicians, and researchers who specialize in improving the sound experience in healthcare environments. Sen Sound has partnered with hospital systems such as Kaiser Permanente, medical device companies such as Medtronic, and its work has been featured in The New York Times, BBC, and STAT.

ART + SCIENCE IN THE TIME OF THE CORONAVIRUS

I find myself ready to leave Bonn and return to the US. This will be the first summer in 17 years that I have not taught, lectured, and traveled with students learning medicine and history abroad. From this distance, I saw an American healthcare system pushed to its breaking point and the politicizing of the deadly coronavirus take a toll on first responders, the elderly and the impoverished. I am a supporter of Black Lives Matter and its evolution into what Scientific American calls “a global initiative to confront racial inequities in society, including environmental injustice, bias in academia and the public health threat of racism.”[1] I am hopeful that the global protests suggest we have reached a critical moment, where the importance of grappling with racial injustice, police violence and the ongoing brutality that people of color face on an everyday basis is recognized not only by those who are immediately affected by these manifestations of racism, but also by their white allies. I am also hopeful that the forced slowing down and meditative potential of lockdown will provide an opportunity for those who are interested in the role of art and science to reflect on our complacency and make needed changes to address the critical issues we face as global citizens.

Among the many organizations raising awareness and relief across the globe at this time, we have pledged our support to two shown below that address the mission of galerie PLUTO. As conscious members of the global community, we all must continue to educate ourselves about the legacy of racial injustice, especially its effects on refugees, black, Indigenous and people of color, and to collectively seek and remedy it in our thoughts and actions. We look to contemporary artists and scientists whose voices call for change and seek to engage them in dialogue with each other and our PLUTO audience. We hope that in our small way, we are here to inspire you to move all of us towards a positive future, together.

Viele liebe Grüße aus Bonn.

[1] “SPECIAL REPORT, The Black Lives Matter Movement,” Scientific American, June 25, 2020, https://www.scientificamerican.com/report/the-black-lives-matter-movement/.

PLUTO is looking forward to its virtual collaboration with LA artist, Carole Kim. A still from her under-the-kitchen-table installation series "Glass House," is above.

Organizations We Support

We would like to thank those who participated in the galerie PLUTO Summer 2020 donation match to Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Outdoor Afro. Although PLUTO’s Summer donation match has ended, we encourage friends of PLUTO to consider making donations to these brave organizations.

PLUTO admires Doctors Without Borders and its mission to respond quickly to medical humanitarian emergencies. Unrestricted funds allow MSF to allocate its resources “most efficiently and where the needs are greatest." MSF treats displaced people globally for the "physical and psychological scars of war and extreme violence, for hardships suffered along the journey, and other essential medical needs.” Amongst its direct responses to COVID-19, MSF has launched a psychosocial aid project for asylum seekers in Germany. MSF is also working with Navajo Nation and Pueblo peoples in the US to provide infection prevention and control training and resources. Just because galerie PLUTO’s Summer 2020 donation match has ended, doesn’t mean it’s too late to support MSF!

PLUTO admires Outdoor Afro and its mission. Outdoor Afro celebrates and inspires Black leadership in nature, shares environmental and self care practices and raises awareness of the impact of environmental issues on families and communities. Outdoor Afro is a US non-profit organization that connects thousands of participants to outdoor experiences in 30 states to help "lead the way for inclusion in outdoor recreation, nature, and conservation for all!"

Outdoor Afro celebrates and inspires Black leadership in nature, shares environmental and self care practices and raises awareness of the impact of environmental issues on families and communities. Outdoor Afro is a US non-profit organization that connects thousands of participants to outdoor experiences in 30 states to help "lead the way for inclusion in outdoor recreation, nature, and conservation for all!"

“Empowering more Black people to become informed and engaged in recognizing the need to protect wildlife and their habitats, promote more equitable access to green spaces are a critical part of a healthy human ecosystem.”  - Taishya Adams, Outdoor Afro Leader

Just because galerie PLUTO’s Summer 2020 donation match has ended, doesn’t mean it’s too late to support Outdoor Afro!

Deena Capparelli

MAY-JUNE 2019

About Deena Capparelli’s project at galerie PLUTO

The natural environment inspires Los Angeles artist, Deena Capparelli, linking her interests in the design, theory and history of gardens to her work as a painter and sculptor. Her focus on plants has led to working with arts collectives, including Moisture, a seven-year project in the Mojave Desert co-coordinated with urban geographer Claude Wiley. In Summer 2019, Deena began a collaboration with Dr. Jeremy Wasser, on the history of medicinal plant gardens. The two explored gardens and landscapes in the UK and Germany, launching a year-long project building on their mutual interests. Combining Capparelli’s investigation of the 18th century transport of herbs and plants from the New World to Europe with Wasser's interest as a historian of medicine in medicinal plant use and pharmacological discoveries; their project will be developed further and realized at galerie PLUTO in the future.

Marina Moevs

JULY 2019

Marina Moevs

In her calm, serene, and brightly lit landscapes, Moevs calls for a rethinking of our identity and our relationship to each other and the planet, in light of the challenges presented by the climate crisis.

For summer 2019 at galerie PLUTO, Marina Moevs exhibits a selection of her more recent drawings. The drawings are a critical component of Moevs' practice; it is where Moevs works out her ideas, and they serve as studies or guides for her large paintings. Climate change is the point of departure for her drawings and paintings, and her work is an extended meditation on our current inability to adequately connect with each other and to adequately value the planet we call home.  The thesis of her metaphysical landscapes is that only through a revolution in our understanding of our identity will we be able to act and avert catastrophe.  Her work describes a key transition in the experience of identity: from a culturally sanctioned interpretation of our individual “self,” to a radical identification with everyone and everything.  This identification is the focus of the works on display, where the landscape opens to reveal a unifying space and light.

A Los Angeles based artist, known for her precisely constructed paintings, Moevs has exhibited in solo and group shows, locally and nationally.   Her work has been seen in museums including the Autry Museum, the California Museum of Afro-American Art, and the Nevada Museum, and she has had solo shows at Koplin Del Rio and Peter Blake Gallery. She has taught at Loyola Marymount University, and the University of Southern California.

On Sunday, July 7th at 18:00,  Moevs was joined by Prof. Dr. Dirk Lanzerath, Director, German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences, University of Bonn and art historian and independent curator, Dr. Susannah Cremer-Bermbach in a salon-style discussion led by Dr. Jeremy Wasser, Director of galerie PLUTO. In addition, the evening included food and music of American composer Robert Moevs, who is known for his highly chromatic music. Robert Moevs is the father of Marina Moevs.  

On Marina Moevs

MAY-JUNE 2019

An introduction by Dr. Dirk Lanzerath

Thank you very much for this invitation. I feel very honored to be part of the opening of Pluto and the opening of your exhibition, Marina.

For me as a philosopher it is always a bit ambivalent to talk about art, since the medium of philosophers is language. In contrast, art can be considered as a way for the expression of our inner self, beyond ordinary language capabilities and how it assists our process of embodiment. So, what can a philosopher do?

When we philosophers address non-verbal talks, we consider them as non-propositional expressions, as qualia. This is to take up Ludwig Wittgenstein’s famous last sentence of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." This does not mean to stop talking, but to start with a different kind of language, like the language of art: The language of art is talking about the unspeakable and visualizing the invisible—using our multiple repertoire of senses…