Ursula Neugebauer
Tour en l'air
1998
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026; photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, photo: Joe Miletzki
- Artist / Artist group
- Ursula Neugebauer
- Title
- Tour en l'air
- Year
- 1998
- Category
- Installation
- Computer-based
- Material / Technique
- 7 red taffeta dresses, decorative busts, computer-controlled (PLC) electric motors
- Dimensions / Duration
- 280 x 700 x 1100 cm
- Collection
- ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe
- Description
- In the installation "tour en l’air [Turn in the Air]", Ursula Neugebauer dresses seven hanging decorative busts in long, red taffeta dresses. Each of these busts is connected to an electric motor that causes the figure to turn. The long skirts are set in motion and whirl around as if in a dance, only to come to rest again shortly afterwards. Neugebauer uses the billowing fabrics to evoke one of her early childhood memories: achieving a new physical experience by twirling as quickly as possible in her first long skirt. In the installation, however, the figures are characterized precisely by the absence of an actual body. The juxtaposition of purely mechanical movement and the fundamentally human experience of dancing is both ghostly and poetic. "Tour en l’air" is one of several textile works that Neugebauer created in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Partly kinetic, partly static, these works play with the presence and absence of the human body, with movement and social roles conveyed through textiles and fashion.
Author
Anna
Feil
Images
Ursula Neugebauer, »Tour en l'air« [AIR TOUR], 1998, 7 red taffeta dresses, decorative busts, computer-controlled electric motors, 280 x 700 x 1100 cm, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026; photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, photo: Joe Miletzki
Ursula Neugebauer, »Tour en l'air« [AIR TOUR], 1998, 7 red taffeta dresses, decorative busts, computer-controlled electric motors, 280 x 700 x 1100 cm, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026; photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, photo: Joe Miletzki
Ursula Neugebauer, »Tour en l'air« [AIR TOUR], 1998, 7 red taffeta dresses, decorative busts, computer-controlled electric motors, 280 x 700 x 1100 cm, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026; photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, photo: Joe Miletzki
Ursula Neugebauer, »Tour en l'air« [AIR TOUR], 1998, 7 red taffeta dresses, decorative busts, computer-controlled electric motors, 280 x 700 x 1100 cm, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026; photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, photo: Joe Miletzki
Ursula Neugebauer, »Tour en l'air« [AIR TOUR], 1998, 7 red taffeta dresses, decorative busts, computer-controlled electric motors, 280 x 700 x 1100 cm, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026; photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, photo: Joe Miletzki
