Gitte Schäfer
06 Sep - 04 Oct 2008
GITTE SCHÄFERT
he Galerie Chez Valentin is pleased to open the 2008/2009 season with the second solo exhibition of Gitte Schäfer. In « se confier aveuglement à la baleine » (“Blindly Confiding in the Whale”), Schäfer fills the main gallery space with a series of new works. At the same time, under the same title in German, the artist presents further works in the Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin, which correspond to her show in Paris. With the opening of this double exhibition, the first catalogue of Schäfer’s work will be published by FRAC Bourgogne in Dijon.
The gallery’s main space is dominated by a monumental, 5x3m large sculpture. Uneven assortments of stones and pebbles in different hues and pink salt crystals form a kind of loose mosaic which covers the floor as an ornamental surface. Opposite, a mural painting with the romanesque motif of a sainty figure mounted on a horse while overcoming in battle against a dragonlike animal occupies the rear of the exhibition. Between these two main works, smaller pictures and objects are scattered throughout the space. As so often in her works, Schäfer has arranged natural materials into enigmatic artefacts and also transferred motifs she came across into a new context. By letting the works appear in an environment alien to them, they turn into triggers of different associations, impressions and sensations.
In the catalogue, the art critic Dominic Eichler describes Schäfer’s method: “Whether she happens to be producing sculptures or paintings on canvas, bricolage objects or wallhangings and other remakes, her works give both curious and ordinary things – as well as her own odd replicas of such things – unexpected sequels. In her work she proposes new incarnations for objects, which would otherwise have had a rather humble or humdrum biography. [...] Schäfer asks her viewers to look in an unbridled fashion at her works. To see them not just for what we know of their parts or origins and what they might would typically be taken to mean.”
he Galerie Chez Valentin is pleased to open the 2008/2009 season with the second solo exhibition of Gitte Schäfer. In « se confier aveuglement à la baleine » (“Blindly Confiding in the Whale”), Schäfer fills the main gallery space with a series of new works. At the same time, under the same title in German, the artist presents further works in the Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin, which correspond to her show in Paris. With the opening of this double exhibition, the first catalogue of Schäfer’s work will be published by FRAC Bourgogne in Dijon.
The gallery’s main space is dominated by a monumental, 5x3m large sculpture. Uneven assortments of stones and pebbles in different hues and pink salt crystals form a kind of loose mosaic which covers the floor as an ornamental surface. Opposite, a mural painting with the romanesque motif of a sainty figure mounted on a horse while overcoming in battle against a dragonlike animal occupies the rear of the exhibition. Between these two main works, smaller pictures and objects are scattered throughout the space. As so often in her works, Schäfer has arranged natural materials into enigmatic artefacts and also transferred motifs she came across into a new context. By letting the works appear in an environment alien to them, they turn into triggers of different associations, impressions and sensations.
In the catalogue, the art critic Dominic Eichler describes Schäfer’s method: “Whether she happens to be producing sculptures or paintings on canvas, bricolage objects or wallhangings and other remakes, her works give both curious and ordinary things – as well as her own odd replicas of such things – unexpected sequels. In her work she proposes new incarnations for objects, which would otherwise have had a rather humble or humdrum biography. [...] Schäfer asks her viewers to look in an unbridled fashion at her works. To see them not just for what we know of their parts or origins and what they might would typically be taken to mean.”