Helge Leiberg – stop motion @ Bode Galerie Nürnberg

Stop Motion

Capturing movement without bringing it to a standstill.

Under the title Stop Motion, Bode Galerie presents a solo exhibition by Helge Leiberg, born in Dresden in 1954. Painting, sculpture, and graphic works enter into a lively dialogue, revealing a central theme that has shaped Leiberg’s work for decades: the human figure in motion.

Leiberg’s figures dance, leap, balance, encounter one another, and drift apart. With expansive gestures and elongated limbs, they become symbols of human existence – oscillating between lightness and tension, closeness and distance, individuality and community. His longstanding engagement with dance, music, and performance is far more than a source of inspiration: rhythm and movement have become essential elements of his artistic language.

Stop Motion takes up this idea. Like a single moment suspended within a continuous sequence, Leiberg’s figures appear briefly frozen – on canvas, in a graphic work, or as a sculpture occupying space. And yet, the next movement already seems inherent in them. The image stands still, while the movement continues in the viewer’s imagination.

The exhibition invites visitors to discover Helge Leiberg’s distinctive theatre of human existence – unfolding between line, colour, body, and space.