zu/haus – bei sich

Rachel Kohn & Christiane Wartenberg

14/09—17/11/24

 

The exhibition links old and new works by two artists whose artistic positions are deeply rooted in sculpture. Both Rachel Kohn and Christiane Wartenberg favor ceramic materials, especially clay. Their interest lies in architectural-looking objects, which are sometimes shown as individual forms, but often as variable ensembles with an installation character. Beyond the almost classic work with the malleable, inorganic natural material, both artists experiment with this range of materials in a variety of ways and thus develop specific formal languages. Interfaces lie primarily in the different examinations of topics such as the location of the human subject through architectural-looking structures, housing(s) and nature, as well as the fragility of human existence.

 

The work of Rachel Kohn (born 1962 in Prague, lives and works in Berlin) often revolves around the human longing for stability and locations that promise protection, being at home, arriving and returning, but often also leaving. This departure, which can also mean leaving or fleeing, is inevitably linked to social and often political conditions and is accompanied (or motivated) by uncertainty and instability. Each object seems to tell a specific story, the end of which (usually) remains open. Rachel Kohn’s works, which can be read as almost psychological descriptions of states, can be divided into different groups: glazed or unglazed houses modeled in an intact objectivity, broken dwellings whose ruinous state is the result of calculated handling of the dried, unfired clay object placed in water, and everyday relics that appear to be textiles.

 

The fragile construct of poetic imagination, history and reality as a matrix of existence, which requires a constant exploration of individual and collective positioning, is one of the key themes in the oeuvre of Christiane Wartenberg (born 1948 in Magdeburg, lives and works in the Oderbruch). Her house-like structures made of clay as well as the various two-dimensional image carrier materials – be they recycled agricultural foil or paper – bear subtle but clear traces of their own history, as both signs of use and traces of the artistic and artisanal production process are visible. These references to the human body are interwoven with language/(hand)writing, which become text images as well as abstract-gestural drawing fragments. This creates multi-layered webs and structures that refer to (thinking) spaces, react to them and also create them. The tactile surfaces as well as the symbolic, at times almost uncertainly searching appearance of the writing (images) reveal the artist’s cautious approach to themes and forms.