Heike Kabisch
frothing, you and I
29 Jun - 24 Aug 2019
ChertLüdde is pleased to present its fourth solo exhibition with German artist Heike Kabisch (b. 1978, Münster).
For her exhibition, titled Frothing, you and I, the artist has created sculptural installations representing an investigative process into herself and the inner workings of her studio. Observing the changes in her work over time, Kabisch exposes its increasing fragmentation and collage-like elements in the fractionated human body, a dismemberment that invites narrative speculation of who, and why. Fragmentation is a process of simultaneous omission and giving of hints, an intentional setting of gestures.
Kabisch reveals an ongoing conflict in preserving the momentary and existential processes that take place in her studio, the site of feelings such as strength and doubt, and where personal experiences that span everyday life are translated back into conscious and unconscious artistic actions. In Paolo Bianchi’s “Das Atelier als Manifest” (“The Studio as a Manifesto”), the studio is a place that contains the unsolvable mystery of artistic activity, a zone which allows for both exhibition and secrecy, a manifestation of artistic being and doing. In the creation of intimate spaces, Kabisch opens doors to inexplicable emotions and states of being, not only for herself but also for others. Yet the journey from studio to gallery entails loss, which occurs when the sacred environment of the studio is interrupted. The exhibition presents the surviving remnants of creation, leaving the conception of what was lost to the imagination.
In the first room, ceramic legs recline in different poses on dirty foam mattresses. Remains of the modeling process are still visible: towels with which the clay was kept moist, paper fats. While some evidence of the art-making process remains, much of it has not survived the migration. Serving as backdrop to the room’s contents is a wallpaper of a rhododendron tree. Evocative of bronze sculptures in parks and of a party cellar from the artist’s youth, the environment is a fabricated space of the self.
Hanging from the wall of the second room is the work Hour of Devour, a template for Exotica, a depiction of the highly idealized sculpture Frauenfigur by Georg Kolbe. A three-dimensional hand is attached to the print, holding a towel soaked in clay, which wipes or covers the head. Patches of clay that have dripped during modeling of the sculpture have been printed and enlarged. Kolbe’s classical icon is transformed by Kabisch, crumbling and dripping over time.
For her exhibition, titled Frothing, you and I, the artist has created sculptural installations representing an investigative process into herself and the inner workings of her studio. Observing the changes in her work over time, Kabisch exposes its increasing fragmentation and collage-like elements in the fractionated human body, a dismemberment that invites narrative speculation of who, and why. Fragmentation is a process of simultaneous omission and giving of hints, an intentional setting of gestures.
Kabisch reveals an ongoing conflict in preserving the momentary and existential processes that take place in her studio, the site of feelings such as strength and doubt, and where personal experiences that span everyday life are translated back into conscious and unconscious artistic actions. In Paolo Bianchi’s “Das Atelier als Manifest” (“The Studio as a Manifesto”), the studio is a place that contains the unsolvable mystery of artistic activity, a zone which allows for both exhibition and secrecy, a manifestation of artistic being and doing. In the creation of intimate spaces, Kabisch opens doors to inexplicable emotions and states of being, not only for herself but also for others. Yet the journey from studio to gallery entails loss, which occurs when the sacred environment of the studio is interrupted. The exhibition presents the surviving remnants of creation, leaving the conception of what was lost to the imagination.
In the first room, ceramic legs recline in different poses on dirty foam mattresses. Remains of the modeling process are still visible: towels with which the clay was kept moist, paper fats. While some evidence of the art-making process remains, much of it has not survived the migration. Serving as backdrop to the room’s contents is a wallpaper of a rhododendron tree. Evocative of bronze sculptures in parks and of a party cellar from the artist’s youth, the environment is a fabricated space of the self.
Hanging from the wall of the second room is the work Hour of Devour, a template for Exotica, a depiction of the highly idealized sculpture Frauenfigur by Georg Kolbe. A three-dimensional hand is attached to the print, holding a towel soaked in clay, which wipes or covers the head. Patches of clay that have dripped during modeling of the sculpture have been printed and enlarged. Kolbe’s classical icon is transformed by Kabisch, crumbling and dripping over time.