English
Deutsch
until 28.01. | #3710ARTatBerlin |Galerie kajetan Berlin presents from 25 November 2022 the exhibition Extended by the artist Birte Horn and the exhibition Contained by the artist Gisela von Bruchhausen.
Extended and contained: As soon as we enter the gallery space with the title in mind, we become curious about the content of this exhibition. The title already suggests what awaits us: voluminous expansion, disciplined density or contradictory opposites?
Birte Horn – Extended | Gisela von Bruchhausen – Contained, exhibition view Galerie kajetan 2022 / 23,
Courtesy the artists & Galerie kajetan, Photo: Marcus Schneider
In this show, two artists come together in their sculptural work with reduced techniques. As different as they may be in the manipulation of their respective materials, their visual vocabulary is based on fine lines and the interplay of light and space. This is made possible by the fact that both shape the properties and characteristics of their respective media in a way that lends the work a strongly individual presence.
From left to right: Birte Horn, standout_blau, oil on canvas, 2022, 100 x 100 x 4 cm; Birte Horn, cutedge_gelb, cutedge_braun,
each: silkscreen on cardboard, 2022, unique pieces, 100 x 80 x 4 cm, Exhibition view Galerie kajetan 2022 / 23,
Courtesy the artist & Galerie kajetan, Photo: Marcus Schneider
In the first room we are immersed into the sculptural world of Gisela von Bruchhausen, whose works in the presented compilation span almost two decades. Her works are geometrically-arranged wall installations that incorporate the qualities of the space in which they are found. Gisela von Bruchhausen’s compositions succeed as autonomous modules, but also as a whole; the play of lines, curves, the natural incidence of light, and the properties of steel lend the works their respective cohesiveness in an eloquent freedom. In a modern, sculptural interpretation of chiaroscuro, von Bruchhausen explores the boundaries of black and white to achieve a coherent result oscillating between two- and three-dimensionality (Schatten II and Staccato III).
Left: Gisela von Bruchhausen, SEXTETT (wall piece 6 parts), steel, galvanised, painted, 2019, 181.6 x 132 x 25.5 cm;
Right: Birte Horn, cutedge_rot, silkscreen on cardboard, 2022, unique piece, 100 x 80 x 4 cm,
Exhibition view Galerie kajetan 2022 / 23, Courtesy the artists & Galerie kajetan, Photo: Marcus Schneider
Despite the apparent compartmentalisation in Gisela von Bruchhausen’s work, connection is the word that opens the access to her œuvre. Observing the behaviour of steel, its forging capabilities, and the tensions that build up when trying to connect different parts is the key to the synthesis and balance achieved. In this way, the individual pieces come together to form a whole and this whole is only complete when light and material, negative and positive space, combine. By staying true to her concept of “structural complementarity,” Gisela von Bruchhausen creates the conditions for an alternating synergy of colour and form, tension and ease. In this examples of Ohne Mitte II or Staccato III, the outside and inside are merged into one to offer a new spatial perception to the fore.
Birte Horn – Extended | Gisela von Bruchhausen – Contained, exhibition view Galerie kajetan 2022 / 23,
Courtesy the artists & Galerie kajetan, Photo: Marcus Schneider
The second exhibition room shows works by Birte Horn from the last four years. Birte Horn’s fascination with the surface, texture and the binary of space and non-space is evident in the way she uses transitions to create her wall installations. Her works seem to expand endlessly, but the artist deliberately avoids unnecessary additions in order to focus on the actual practice of cutting, painting, gluing, and sewing. Birte Horn’s works often use partially overlooked materials (for example cardboard) as starting points that evolve into complex sculptural relief-like paintings. Horn challenges the idea of an object’s functionality by removing its original properties and placing it in different contexts.
Birte Horn, Papercut, 22, 2021 Box, cut, 19 x 14 cm, photo Bernhard Strauss
Can a surface ever be complete? To what extent can we claim that an image is a reality in its own right? The Cutedge series undoubtedly plays with these questions and the idea of an alleged “completeness”: layer by layer, the pieces of cardboard begin to take on depth and texture, almost as if they were reminiscent of closed doors or sealed windows that hide something which they simultaneously allude to. Birte Horn’s large-format paintings play between compact surfaces and emptiness, colour and whiteness, the walls and the world.
In this exhibition, the works of Gisela von Bruchhausen and Birte Horn become a tangible and comprehensible experience in both their physical compression and natural extension.
Text by Vanessa Souli
Opening reception: Friday, 25 November 2022, 06:00 p.m. – 09:00 p.m.
Special opening hours: Saturday, 26 November 2022, 11:00 a.m.- 07:00 p.m., Charlottenwalk Gallery Tour
Exhibition dates: Friday, 25. November until Saturday, 28. Januar 2023
to the gallery
Caption: Gisela von Bruchhausen, STACCATO III, 2005 ( wall piece) steel, galvanised, painted, 130 x 110 x 28.5 cm, photo Jörg von Bruchhausen
Exhibition Birte Horn + Gisela von Bruchhausen – Galerie kajetan Berlin | Zeitgenössische Kunst – Contemporary Art – Exhibitions Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
