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until 20.01. | #4121ARTatBerlin | Galerie Société shows from 01. Dezember 2023 (Opening: 30.11.) the exhibition “Ich bin hier raus, holt mich ein Star” by the artist Tina Braegger.
Since 2016, Braegger’s eclectic body of painting has revolved around a single motif: the iconic “dancing bear.” Initially designed by artist Bob Thomas to appear on the back cover of the 1973 release The History of the Grateful Dead (Bear’s Choice), these playful mascots quickly became a staple of the American rock band’s visual identity. In her paintings, as in the concert parking lots that spawned countless variations of this figure, the bear operates according to the logic of the bootleg and has developed into a reference system that suffuses every aspect of Braegger’s practice. By taking the bear out of its context of 70s psychedelia and its association with the Grateful Dead’s music, the artist directs our attention to the motif itself and its visual and conceptual malleability. As a sign or symbol, the bear can be manipulated to mean anything—even to stand in for painting itself. Ich bin hier raus, holt mich ein Star presents new works that reflect on the process of painting. The bear appears in various formations and constellations, often depicted with distinguishing characteristics like cigarettes, apples, or eyes. This approach is reminiscent of the Renaissance and Baroque practice of embedding “attributes” in religious and mythological painting, emboldening the bears as individual narrative agents. As a painter and writer, Braegger never begins with a blank canvas or page, but instead grapples with this narrative, conceptual, and visual vesselacross different media. “In a way, it became a mechanism that kept itself going,” Braegger explains of her subject matter. “It’s as if the bear came to life like artificial intelligence—it’s a cyborg, and it’s about to take over the world.”
Tina Braegger b. 1985, Lucerne lives and works in Berlin and Zurich. Recent exhibitions include Curiosity Killed the Cat, a two-person exhibition with Sturtevant curated by Udo Kittelmann at de 11 Lijnen in Belgium and a solo exhibition at Neuer Essener Kunstverein. Her works have additionally been exhibited at New Acquisition II, Hildebrand Collection G2 Kunsthalle, Leipzig; Kunsthalle Bern; Luma Westbau, Zurich; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo; Istituto Svizzero di Roma, Rome; Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen; Fondation Ricard, Paris; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; and DAAD Galerie, Berlin; among other venues.
Opening: Thursday, 30. November 2023, 6 – 9 pm
Exhibition dates: Friday, 01. December 2023 until Saturday, 20. January 2024
To the gallery
Image caption: Id, Ego, Superego 2023, Oil on canvas, 209 x 259 x 6 cm, 82 1/2 x 102 x 2 1/2 in
Exhibition Tina Braegger – Galerie Société | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Exhibitions Berlin Galleries | ART at Berlin
