Thoughts Play Hide & Seek

An adventurous art exhibition for kids and adults

by Rebecca Raue

Hatje Cantz, 2024
ISBN 978-3-7757-5778-2

One of several full-page photographs Thoughts Play Hide and Seek devotes to Claudia Hill's studio, carrying no caption or article text: a close view of the hanging fabric ceiling installation that the book's introductory page describes as filtering daylight into her room like a colorful sky overhead.

A text page from Thoughts Play Hide and Seek introducing Claudia Hill in the book's own voice, set on a solid purple background. It describes her as an interdisciplinary artist who makes objects for personal encounters and community, ranging from performative designs and large-scale textile sculptures to participatory actions staged at venues including the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe.

Another full-page, textless photograph in the same sequence: two people resting on the floor beneath Claudia Hill's canopy of hanging fabric panels, with the book's small framed watercolor-and-fabric pictures visible on the wall behind.

A full-page photograph in the same sequence, showing a person in an inverted backbend on the floor mats beneath the fabric canopy. Overlaid on the image is one of the book's imagined questions about the visionary countries that might fly such flags, continuing the narrative voice established on the page introducing Claudia Hill's studio.

Another full-page, textless photograph in Thoughts Play Hide and Seek's studio sequence: three people lying beneath the same hanging fabric installation, consistent with the book's earlier description of lying on mattresses to look up into what it calls the room's colorful sky.

The last full-page, textless photograph in the studio sequence: two people lying on the floor beneath the same hanging installation, where a hand-painted tree motif meets a panel of shimmering magenta fabric overhead.

A page from the children's art book Thoughts Play Hide and Seek, introducing Claudia Hill under the heading Claudia. Written as an imagined visit to her studio, it describes colorful fabric flags filtering light through the windows, mattresses on the floor, and four small watercolor-and-fabric pictures on the wall. The text has Claudia explain why she is drawn to used fabric: it carries other people's stories.

Available at Hatje Cantz

Gedanken Spielen Verstecken
Exhibition at Haus Kunst Mitte, Berlin
2023