Margret Eicher (born 1955 in Viersen) combines in her large-format tapestries the baroque form of tapestries with familiar motifs of current media images of our information society. Thus her so-called media tapestries are located at the interface between the traditionally material work of art and the electronic noise of the digital. Two worlds that, at first glance, do not want to fit together, but nevertheless merge so harmoniously in Eicherʼs work and draw the viewer into a „maelstrom of hybrid seduction“ – as Harald Kunde, director of the Museum Kurhaus in Kleve, aptly formulated.

Margret Eicher returns the tapestry to its original function as a means of communication. Fascinated by the trivial contemporary pictorial clichés of magazines and the Internet, the artist combines the garish beauty of the high-end surfaces that reflect this current affairs and image of man with the function and effect of the historical tapestry of the 17th century. As symbols of aristocracy, wealth, power and education, historical tapestries served primarily political purposes. Compared this with the contemporary mass media, which Eicher relates to this courtly representation and legitimation, astonishing parallels emerge, through which the artist questions the power of visual communication of todayʼs time.

The image selected by Eicher are digitalized and fused in a complexe computer processing into new image contents […]. The central pictorial event in Eicherʼs works is always framed by digitalized borders according to their historical-traditional function, refer to symbols and signs of contemporary society. They are composed of scientific charts, stock exchange or economic diagrams, excerpts from comics and computer games or – as in Parisʼ Judgement (2012) – a menu bar which suggests to the viewer the possibility of being able to leave the depicted reality with just one click […]. The exhibition Margret Eicher. Lob der Malkunst extends over the first floor of the historic Franz von Stuckʼs villa. Starting in his former artistʼs studio and the later representation and sales room – where Eicherʼs works are installed in front of the Brussels tapestries belonging to the original furnishings of the room. They cast a new light on the former living quarters of this artist prince by rediscovering the myth as a form of social communication.