Es löscht das Meer die Sonne aus

(The Sea Extinguishes the Sun)

What the eye misses when it moves too fast, and what gets lost along the way, becomes the material of Moritz Berg's work. At a time when visual culture accelerates and overwhelms, his practice slows perception and shifts attention from the spectacular to the subtle.

Born in 1994 in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Moritz Berg lives and works in Stuttgart. Trained in architecture, he has developed a multidisciplinary practice spanning painting, sculpture and photography. His work has been shown internationally, including in Berlin, New York, Lisbon and Vienna.

Es löscht das Meer die Sonne aus is Berg's second solo exhibition with Grège Gallery. His first, Ondes Sans Rivage, brought together canvases produced outdoors, exposed to rain, moving shadows and environmental traces. The new exhibition continues this approach, extending the act of letting go and bringing together different bodies of work shown here together for the first time.

The large-scale works on raw canvas are made using rainwater, Assam tea and wood stain poured directly onto the surface. As the materials dry at different speeds, they separate and settle into layered zones that suggest imprints, burns or bodily traces. What matters here is not image-making as control, but the slow process unfolding on the canvas.

The photographic transfers, formed during travels along the coastlines of Athens, Sicily, Mallorca and the Côte d'Azur, capture moments of pause. Arranged in grid-like structures, they move between document and trace, recording ordinary situations shaped by the process.

Berg's wall-mounted reliefs begin with subtle gestures. A pen tied to a branch and left to the wind, or loosely held while moving across water. Those lines are close to drawing in space, recording movement and chance rather than any controlled gesture. Together, these bodies of work explore slowness, trace and transformation. They move between image and residue, control and exposure, asking what remains when perception is no longer rushed. The exhibition takes place at Artem, an industrial space in Forest equipped with large-format printing and cutting machines, exceptionally open to the public for the occasion.

Es löscht das Meer die Sonne aus, the sea extinguishes the sun. A familiar moment that vanishes as we see it. Perhaps that is what Berg is after: to show just enough that seeing becomes a decision.

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