English
Deutsch
until 28.11. | #2253ARTatBerlin | galerie gerken shows from 19. October 2018 an exhibition with artworks by the artist Helga Gerken-Grieshaber. Parallel to this, galerie gerken has extended the exhibition A Remix of Aesthetic Forms and their Opposites by the artists Jan Bernstein and Peter Wackernagel at Cella Artis until 28 November 2018.
Helga Gerken-Grieshaber`s series ‘runter mit den Klamotten’ deals with daily political debates. The covering of women to adhere to the religious doctrine of maintaining purity and reducing temptation, raises complex questions surrounding female emancipation. Helga Gerken-Grieshaber experienced the daily absurdity of this first hand during her travels. Sitting at the breakfast table for example, concealed from head to toe, lifting fabric away from her face to allow food to reach her mouth; and through her veil witnessing men in white vests, sitting next to their shrouded wives by the fireplace. In contrast to her own life, these manufactured and nonsensical restrictions, caused an inner outcry within Helga Gerken-Grieshaber which she responds to through this work.
Helga Gerken-Grieshaber, Kniebiss (Detail), 2014,
Stoff, Acryl und Kreide auf Leinwand, 120 x 160 cm
The underlying complex hierarchy of values, imposed by how much or how little fabric a women wears, corresponds with the varying levels of female freedom.
Completely concealing the female gender under a robe is both an extreme and complicated image for Western society. So when travelling in these parts with a modern mindset, it should be noted that a short skirt is perceived as an invitation to touch with red lips waiting to be kissed. Helga Gerken-Grieshaber sensitively takes on these ambivalences of social oppression and embeds them in the chaos they create. Every stroke, every surface fighting for its existence; becoming pierced, screwed further, lost in the surface of the canvas, finds its way back to the picturesque body. A translucent shadow in pastel momentum carries on the dynamics of graphic stylistics, but also brings calm to the figurative contours that arise from the pigment. Within her abstraction Gerken-Grieshaber allows the viewer to find something they can cling to: the human form. Even in fragmentation she offers the possibility of recognition and identification.
Through this cognitive process the title of the series – ‘runter mit dem Klamotten’ – is loudly heard as a call to arms against the existing mechanisms of female oppression.
Vernissage: Friday, 19th October 2018, 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. – Speech: Helene Bosecker
Exhibition period: Friday, 19th October to Wednesday, 28th November 2018
Midissage: Friday, 16th November 2018, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Zur galerie gerken
Image caption, cover: Helga Gerken-Grieshaber, Kniebiss (Detail), 2014, Stoff, Acryl und Kreide auf Leinwand, 120 x 160 cm
Exhibition Helga Gerken-Grieshaber – galerie gerken | Contemporary Art – Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin – Exhibitions Berlin Galleries | ART at Berlin
