Courtesy of the artist © Sorgen (International)
17/03/2020 Review No.1.:
Sorgen (International) "Vol.8: The Water"
Installation, Video, Performance, 2019
Rethink: MUST HAVE.
The artist collective criticize brand strategies, the financial system and the establishment of a wasteful consumerism. By means of an own and specially created brand „Sorgen (International)“, and launching the new product „(tap)Water“ as a beauty elixier, which is available for 79€/ bottle marketingstrategies are lead ad absurdum. Through exaggeration the recipient starts to rethink within his role as a potential customer the meaning and authenticity of such strategies. Is this about the consumption of a product or is it a lot more about (over)consumption as a means to pay off anxieties (worries)?
20/03/2020 Review No. 2:
Sonja Alhäuser
"Das Willkommen", 2020 Margarine, Cooler, lit.
Seduction and delimitation.
The artist uses food to create sculptures installations and performances. Thereby she deals, already during the formation process, with temporality: Each material has a certain lifespan and it’s moment of ideal formability. The material reminds the viewer of the transience of things.
Courtesy of the artist © Sonja Alhäuser
At the same time the viewer becomes aware of the value of the moment, especially during her performances, which are banquets made of edibles only. Seduced by abundance and tempted to an excessive consumption, a natural defense gesture is just a matter of time: the question of meaning, an ethics of eating or simply nausea.
© Maik Schierloh
27/03/2020 Review No. 3:
Frank Nitsche
"Study from the Human Body (Rare)", 2020
various materials
Behind the mask.
The striking aesthetics of the artist‘s works arise from the material he uses for his installative collages (advertising posters).
According to the title, these works are in a minority to the abstract oil paintings otherwise typical for the artist. But all the work is about what’s not visible. So the artist also abstracts in the collages: the advertising motif is literally turned upside down, the most effective advertising element is hidden. What’s left forms something entirely new. Colour and texture gain dominance and the shapes start to play. Masks that shine with sequins and at the same time repel with their fleshy red colour.
An ambivalence that can also act as a symbol in times like these: The beauty of the shiny surface like the isolation as an act of solidarity. And opposite that what happens behind the (protection)mask: The personal confrontation with the situation, a time full of thoughts, desires and fears.
Courtesy of the artist © Kirstin Burckhardt
04/04/2020 Review No. 4:
Kirstin Burckhardt
„a body that only embodies“, 2020
Videoinstallation, 6:30 min.
„A body that is completely closed cannot thrive“
In times of physical distance and isolation, desires make us aware of basic needs: absorbing, releasing, exchanging closeness and warmth, being together and touch.
In the close-up video of her mouth and tongue, the artist shows us the meaning of this body orifice. It is not only a vital body channel but also a sensory organ for touch, taste and communication. In addition to smacking and mumbling sound, the video also includes speech by voice and text.
In her medially very complex work everything revolves around the core topic of the definition of a body: Do I have a body? Am I a body? Do I own a body? With the focus on the moment of touch the artist brings a new way of looking at ordinary gestures. It illuminates in-between spaces, such as the encounter of the self with the outside, or with fellow human beings, show ambivalence and fragility of mechanism of opening and demarcation and associate themes such as empathy, gender and trauma.
© Daniela von Damaros
18/04/2020 Review No. 5:
Albert Weis
faltung (5013/9004), 2017
folded and powdercoated Aluminium perforated sheets,
210 x 120 x 130 cm.
Space as Sculpture.
The clear formal language of the artist‘s work is both appealing and soothing. In permeating the material, the artist creates an access to spaces of meaning beyond the aesthetics of the surface. According to the exhibit, Weis breaks the viewers accustomed gaze on the material by folding its surface. In interaction with the light, new patterns appear (moiré effect). Experiencing the work like a sculpture by moving through the space, opens up another core aspect of the artist’s work: it’s formed in relation to the space, as reference to modern architecture or the immediate surrounding space. The viewer finds himself between space and the object, within the installation, so to speak „in the middle (instead of just there)“. This moving view allows to experience sculpture from a different perspective, therefore boundaries to expand and at best - following Giacometti‘s definition of sculpture as a quantity defining space - space to be understood as sculpture itself.
courtesy of the artist © Jens Heller
04/05/2020 Review No. 6:
Jens Heller
"Archon, Eschatologische Naherwartung" 2019 / "Schönheit - Glanz der Wahrheit" 2020, "Archon, ein Spiel anbietend" 2010
Oil on canvas
Golden truth.
Symbols are almost an integral part of the artist’s allegorical picture compositions. In the series of the Archons, they allow us together with the central figure, who evades our gaze through a golden hooded coat, to scrutinize perceptions of reality: on the surface, in the golden glow of the cloak, an inside and outside opens up. The possibility to look „behind the façade“ of the shine is denied. But the Archon succeeds in opening up to an inner world under the protection of the mantle. The pictorial space reflects this: in a hyperrealistic manner, with pictorial elements enlarged as if through a magnifying glass, and embedding amorph forms, a dream world is revealed. Does the artist thereby refer to the existence of parallel realities, or their dependence and influence of an inner, individual perception? Does he thereby bring us a little closer to a real picture of reality?
courtesy of the artist © Jonny Star
22/05/2020 Review No. 7:
Jonny Star
"Hey Baby, I am a full-time painter!" 1-3, 2019
Pigmentdruck auf Stoff, Stoff, Swarovski-Perlen, jeweils 100x140x5cm
Truth or dare.
One knows this moment of an encounter with a stranger, a talk accompanied by caution and an ambivalent feeling towards the spoken words. Where do these words come from? The self, benevolence, a role play or even disfavor? Does this person pretend to be someone or is his or her Habitus authentic?
„Hey baby, I am a full-time painter!” is the title of a three-part work by artist and curator Jonny Star, which points to such a moment: En détail, to the Habitus of an artist in the public art scene.
By collaging a variety of materials, the artist superimposes the fabric and its inherent motif of flowers with photographic fragments of a nude self portrait, literally interweaving them with embroidered Swarovski beads. Their brilliance and cheerful colors are flattering, while the immediate look into the camera provokes the eye of the beholder.
Just as the artist stratified a body, namely that of the art work, by artistic means, Star embed her own body in these layers and the same time unfold them as attributes of gender roles. An image of such a baroque material density evokes a heavy and tight feeling as well as some identity structures do nowadays and seemingly clash with the human nature.
courtesy of the artist © BIEST!
09/06/2020 Review No.8.:
BIEST "Quadrat",
microfiber, zippers, snaps, chiffon, velcro
Collection 2018 + 2020, Installation & Performance
All in the nothing.
Where the story of an icon of modern art once began, the new BIEST collection is now presented: moved and on stage. And in the exhibition How beautiful you are! It resembles a circus of the public and celebrates its last collection as a room installation at least as enjoyably.
BIEST - that is the Berlin designer duo Mirko & Silvio. Their concept stands for clear forms, for "less is more". With their collection "Quadrat" they set a zero point in the fashion world, a new beginning, innovation!
Just like the icon, "The Black Square (on a White Background)" by Kasimir Malevich, which bundles and simultaneously dissolves everything that has already been painted in black, all the possibilities unfold from here and, through cracks in the surface (Craquelé́), the background, the white of the background. The black square of fabric, carried by the body and on the skin, reveals that "behind" here and there, in patterns and through contour. The minimization of the form creates freedom and space for thinking, for associations, self-reflection and creativity! In this way, each square worn becomes an individual "dwelling", a place of well-being and a unique piece, which in its entirety leads to infinite variations of the same collection.
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