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until 16.03. | #4165ARTatBerlin | Galerie Dittmar presents from 25. January 2024 the Duo-exhibition of artists Rudolf Englert and Chloé Bensahel.
The exhibition on Rudolf Englert (1921-1989) and Chloe Bensahel (*1991) unites two positions that can be related to each other across time and independent of the different media. In addition to the visual proximity, based on the principle of sequencing, the reference to writing and music are fundamental elements in the work of both artists. The juxtaposition emphasises both the reflective and poetic approach and enables a visual approach that opens up new possibilities of perception while preserving the different conditions.
Rudolf Englert created his innovative series of drawings in black ink from the beginning of the 1960s. Despite all the discipline, the series have a free, individual expression and point the way for his future work. In their tendency to be related to the works of the ZERO artists, the drawings are highly independent. In the seventies, the compositions became more complex and pictorial in their design. The written character as well as the echoes of musical notation, which emerged early on, become clearer. Even then, leading art historians recognised Englert’s special position within the international avant-garde movements. Against the background of the re-evaluation of the image and the medium of paper in the 1970s, the significance of the artist, who participated in this development in various ways, also becomes apparent.
“Nothing comes across as significant and it is precisely because of this that everything is detached from arbitrariness and becomes significant in the sense of a deliberately placed sign as an expression of a process… The viewer enters into a truly communicative dialogue of reflection, recognition and understanding.” (Dieter Krüger, Kunsthalle Osnabrück, 2005.) In 2022, Edition Dittmar published a comprehensive publication on Englert with a detailed annotated biography.
While Rudolf Englert significantly expands the concept of drawing, Chloe Bensahel’s works turn away from a restrictive concept of textile art. By combining traditional techniques with the latest technology, the artist explores fundamental aesthetic questions from a contemporary perspective.
Chloe Bensahel, Foreign Lands separated by mountains and rivers, 2020,
Tusche, handgeschöpftes versponnenes Papier, 32 x 30 cm
Chloe Bensahels The group of works Text Tapestries thematises the connection between text and textile. The artist writes on handmade paper, which she then tears and twists into a thread. She weaves this together with other materials, mostly hemp or wool. Bensahel’s Interactive Tapestries are a continuation of this idea. Based on the meaning of the text in Hebrew, where the text, written exclusively in consonants, only becomes complete through the spoken vowels, the viewers form an integral part of the work. By weaving in conductive threads, sound or light sequences are activated when the works are touched; they become a resonating body. Emerging from the artist’s collaboration with Jacquard and the Google Arts & Culture Residency (2019), the group of works aims to enable a new form of access alongside the primarily visual.
The artist graduated from Parsons School of Design, New York, where she initially studied Integrated Design. A three-month stay in Japan and a subsequent scholarship at the Australian Tapestry Workshop, Melbourne, led the artist to weaving. Most recently, in November 2023, she was awarded the Prix des Amis du Palais de Tokyo, Paris. A solo exhibition will follow in spring 2024 to mark the occasion. From March to May 2024, double residency at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Villa Albertine, Boston, resulting in the presentation of her work at Design Miami in December 2023.
The initiative for this exhibition was taken by the art historian and curator Christina-Marie Lümen, Paris/Berlin.
Opening: Thursday, 25. January 2024, 6pm – 8pm
Exhibition dates: Thursday, 25. January until Monday, 4. March 2024 – ATTENTION: extended until Saturday, 16 March 2024
To the Gallery
Image Caption: Rudolf Englert, Ibiza, 1978, Tusche auf Papier, 23 x 32 cm
Exhibition Rudolf Englert und Chloé Bensahel – Galerie Dittmar | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
