Carmen Arias in conversation with curator Lydia Korndörfer as part of an open studio and artist talk on Friday, May 15 at 12:00.
As part of the Salta art Studio Grant, awarded in February 2026, Arias will open the doors to her studio at Empfangshalle (Gabelsbergerstraße 83), offering insight into her current work and research. The work presented here examines the use of ornaments in public space through encounters between natural forms and constructed imitations. The talk begins at 12:00, with the studio remaining open until 16:00. The event takes place as part of the Various Others program.
The works of Carmen Arias take us on a journey into the undergrounds and to the “Supraterranean.” Through the means of sculpture and language, Arias explores what defines modern life—and its ancient histories. Her focus is on urban space, yet the artist reveals unexpected connections between today’s sewage systems and Paleolithic caves. In this way, the city becomes a portal—and the former replica of the Altamira Cave at the Deutsches Museum ultimately leads back to the artist’s homeland.
Having grown up near Altamira, Arias’s understanding of sculpture was shaped not only by her place of origin but also by her father’s profession: “Only in sculpture and archaeology would one attribute meaning to a simple stone.”, states the artist and looking closely at her young oeuvre, the proximity of her practice to the methods and objects of archaeology becomes strikingly apparent. Artisanal techniques of reproduction intersect with the presence of scientific instruments and archaeological study objects. In this sense, a giant tooth appears both as a tool for digesting one’s urban environment and as a memorial object, carrying traces of an individual life into the future.
The open studio and artist talk provide an opportunity to further explore how the methods of sculpture and archaeology—and the magic of reproduction—intertwine in Arias’s works, while offering insight into the conditions of their production.
Lydia Korndörfer
About Carmen Arias
Carmen Arias’s practice spans sculpture, installation, sound, and material activations, engaging with the city as a constructed body shaped by political, social, and historical forces.
Working with materials such as ceramic, plaster, concrete, steel, and found objects, she draws on overlooked architectural and infrastructural elements -manholes, service ladders, pipes, ventilation systems, and underground passages. Through shifts in scale, material, and function, these structures are reconfigured into sculptural forms that question how urban systems operate and how they relate to the body.
Her work often approaches the city as an archaeological site, revealing hidden networks of circulation -of water, air, and movement- and exploring their resonance with bodily processes. Sculptural elements can be activated performatively, further emphasizing the relationship between infrastructure, presence, and use.
About Lydia Korndörfer
Lydia Korndoerfer is an art historian, writer, and curator. Her research and curatorial projects focus on interdisciplinary artistic practices that engage with contemporary and future realities, moving between the fields of politics, society, religion, science, technology, and nature. She is currently an Associate Curator at Haus der Kunst München, where the exhibition “For Children. Art Stories since 1968” has been central to her work since 2023. From 2020 to 2021, she was Artistic Director of the Kunstverein Arnsberg. Since 2013, she has been working as an independent curator realising exhibitions such as “Proyecto Eclipse” at Matucana 100 in Santiago de Chile (2019), and “Hey, Mars!” at Haus am Lützowplatz in Berlin (2019). Korndoerfer studied at the Humboldt University in Berlin and the University of Bologna. She has contributed to exhibition catalogues and monographs as an author and editor, and has taught at art academies including the Berlin University of the Arts, the Braunschweig University of Art, and Burg Giebichenstein in Halle.