Blog entry by Alena Sokhan in Berlin // Thursday, Oct. 29, 2014
Eigen+Art Lab is very experimental: in everything from its location in a former Jewish Girls’ school, to its choice of shows and unlikely artistic pairings. The gallery’s energetic curiosity is accompanied with a outward, collaborative energy towards developing existing projects and foundations.
The show that had its vernissage this last saturday, on Oct. 25, featured three artists – Michael Just, Manuela Kasemir and Ruprecht von Kaufmann – selected from the past Fellows of the prestigious Konrad Adenauer Foundation. The previous recipients (and one current one) were selected to show their works together in a show, providing support for their artistic activities in addition to the scholarship.
Ruprecht von Kaufmann: ‘Schmelzwasser’, 2014, oil, acrylic and collage on linoleum, 165 x 210 cm // Photo courtesy the artist and Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin
The exhibition assembled the three artists in works that attempted to materialize an image that is fleeting and transient. The instability of forms and gestures is seen in Michael Just’s impressive output of forms: delicate photographic prints, text works, sculptural pieces. He attempts to point at what cannot be said through history or philosophy, relying on cultural material to take its own image – looking at everything from Adorno to the Beastie Boys. The delicacy of his photographic prints is a result of a unique printing process where the screen leaves its own marks on the work.
Ruprecht von Kaufmann produced a series of 50 ghostly portraits, at once gestural and representative, muddy and boldly colourful. He experiments with painting on linoleum, carving out expressive lines and building up masses of paint. Manuela Kasemir’s photographs present distinct but indescribable affects in images that are neither narrative nor symbolic. She tests different subjects: people, objects and scenes that are powerfully expressive in their own particular language.
The artists exploratory practice is representative of Eigen+Art Lab, which similarly searches for new possibilities and extensions. The next exhibition will be opening on Thursday, Oct. 30, titled Sliding Scale, a series of works by Christine Hill.
Manuela Kasemir: ‘Gezeiten 04’, 2014, digital C-Print on Dibond (framed), 147 x 98 cm // Photo courtesy the artist and Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin
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Additional Information
EIGEN + ART LAB
GROUP SHOW – Michael Just, Manuela Kasemir, Ruprecht von Kaufmann
Exhibition: Sep. 11 – Oct. 21, 2014
Ehemalige Jüdische Mädchenschule, Auguststraße 11 (click here for map)
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