Kerstin von Gabain

The exhibition brings together a constellation of Kerstin von Gabain’s wax and plaster sculptures of vegetables, fruit, and body parts. Building on previous work, the exhibition further explores how von Gabain considers and plays with the space between objects and their representation, the evolution and exchange between sculpture and photography, which are the recurring elements and processes underlying her oeuvre. The cross sections of bones are cast from her arms and legs and hollowed out through sanding to resemble bone marrow. Unlike the putrefaction of Paul Thek’s meat sculptures, however, von Gabain’s objects are abstract and candy colored. The pieces are handmade yet resolutely perfect, subversively fresh and immediate. Through their mediation via postcard-sized photos, they serve as memento mori that are garish in their eternality, and yet suggest a knowledge too small, a lifespan too short. The objects rest on plinths of concrete, acrylic glass, and MDF laminated or painted pink, which further juxtaposes their aesthetic and conceptual volatility, as well as renders them unfit for consumption; their eccentric connections to one another suggest the biopolitics of breeding, the regulation of the path toward consumerhood, as well as the collective unchartedness of our civilization. TEXT: Helen Young Chang

until 29.04.2017