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until 04.10. | #4780ARTatBerlin | Galerie feinart berlin presents from 11. September 2025 the exhibition “ÉCORCHÉ_AQUAE” by the artist Samira Freitag.
Samira Freitag designs a comprehensive multimedia concept addressing questions of body, identity, role models and transformation.
Under the title Écorché, Samira Freitag summarises her years of exploration of questions about the body, identity, role models and transformation in a multimedia concept, which she addresses in mise-en-scène of her own body inspired by ancient mythology and symbolic history. Her approach is bold, aggressive, a devotion to herself as a creative medium. Écorché, Latin for „skinning“, is the guiding motif. In 2025, the new focus is on water as an element and experience.
Samira Freitag, „Sunbathe“, 2024, acrylic, oil, water colour, oil pastels, pigments on canvas, 140 x 140cm ©S.Freitag
By incorporating the initial Häutungspuppen-Installation (skinning doll installation), Samira Freitag’s thesis project at the Berlin University of the Arts, which was nominated for the 2017 President’s Prize, the exhibition formulates a conclusion to nearly nine years of her artistic work. In casts, disguises and exposures of her own body, the artist questions gender identities, traditional role models and the idea of emancipation from a female perspective — between reactivation and reinterpretation. Her (self-)staging of female, mythologically inspired roles and their documentation in film and photography transcend the boundaries of vulnerability and shame and explore the creative potential of emotional unconscious impulses. The resulting images and films, as well as props and random products from sessions taking place outside the public eye, form the material for Samira Freitag’s installations, objects, diary-like collage books and paintings.
Photo of underwater staging by Samira Freitag for ÉCORCHÉ_AQUAE, 2025, Photo Credits ©Yannick Krauke, performer: Carolin Martin
Since the beginning of the year, she has been developing a spatial installation on the element of water for the exhibition ÉCORCHÉ_AQUAE, which will open during Berlin Art Week 2025, based on stagings on and in natural lakes in Berlin and the surrounding area. For the first time, she is collaborating with a performer, Carolin Martin. This expands the range of means of expression and scenic possibilities opened up by the concept of Écorché to include the dimension of the basic element of all life: water as a medium of transformation, renewal and self-knowledge, but also as a gateway to the subconscious.
Samira Freitag, installation „Écorché“ with doll object, photos, drawings, prints, painting, 400 x 400cm 2016-17 ©S.Freitag
Samira Freitag always accompanies her objects and installations with paintings and graphics. The new works on the theme of water are on display for the first time in the exhibition. The fifth collage diary also completes her „Strip Tease“ series. Since 2016, the „Strip Tease“ books have accompanied the artist’s work in the form of a diary, bringing together photos, textiles, notes, parts of body casts, make-up utensils and much more in collaged image cosmoses.
Samira Freitag, „Entpuppung“, 2024, acrylic, oil, water colour, pigments on canvas, 140 x 140cm ©S.Freitag
Short CV Samira Freitag
1982 born in Berlin
2002-03 Guest student and nude modelling classes, Swinburne University Melbourne
2004-07 Graphic design, Lette Verein, Vocational school for Design Berlin
2007-08 Working scholarship „European Perspectives 2007/2008“ Barcelona
2009 Studied teaching of fine arts and switched to independent fine arts, UdK Berlin
2010-16 Fine arts Master student under Prof. Held, UdK Berlin
2013-14 Studies of fine arts under Prof. Daniel Richter and Prof. Gunter Damisch, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
2017 Master student and nomination for the President’s Award of the UdK
2014-24 Artistic assistant to Prof. em. Wolfgang Petrick, Berlin
Samira Freitag, Coloured Moulting, 2016, Papier collé, etching on Bütten (unique work), 78 x 53cm ©S.Freitag
Scholarships/Awards
2021 Group scholarship from the Kulturstiftung Schloss Wiepersdorf, Brandenburg
2017 Nomination for the President’s Award, University of the Fine Arts Berlin
2013-2014 One-year scholarship, Dorothea-Konwiarz-Stiftung Berlin
2007-2008 Working scholarship „European Perspectives 2007/2008“, Record Label ‚Sinnamon Records‘ Barcelona
Works in collections
The Harvest Art Collection, Hotel Waldorf Astoria Berlin
Sammlung Kornelia und Dr. Harald Frisch Berlin
Sammlung Dr. Albrecht und Toni Kumm Berlin
Die SAMMLUNG KÜNSTLERINNEN, Kunst- und Museumsbibliothek Köln
Opening: Thurdsay, 11. September 2025, 6:00 – 9:00 pm | 7:00 pm Laudatory speech by Dr Stefan Winter, honorary professor of artistic research. This will be followed by Hakan Tuğrul playing the Persian santur, whose shimmering, multi-layered sound texture creates a feeling of transformation and fluidity.
Exhibition dates: Thursday 11. September to Saturday 04. October 2025
To the Gallery
Image caption: Photo of underwater staging by Samira Freitag for ÉCORCHÉ_AQUAE, 2025, Photo Credits ©Yannick Krauke, performer: Carolin Martin
Exhibition Samira Freitag – Galerie feinart berlin | Zeitgenössische Kunst Berlin – Contemporary Art – Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
