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until 10.10. | #0198ARTatBerlin | Laura Mars Gallery presents the exhibition “Out to lunch” by the artist Ina Weber from 12th September 2015.
Ina Weber’s Chinese Takeout and other Asian Look ceramics
When Voltaire wrote enthusiastically about China in the mid‐18th century, he imagined a huge empire governed
by enlightened scholar‐officials. He had never visited China, but he is sure to have seen the Chinese fashion at
the princely courts of Europe of his time, where pagodas, tea houses and pavilions had been built in the Oriental
style in numerous gardens and parks. With their curved roof shapes, colourful columns and exotic figures, they
suggested, using a few set pieces, an image of a cheerfully playful exotic lifestyle. It should at least be noted here
that, whereas at that time there was significant money tied up in the copying of Chinese porcelain on a large
scale, the technology transfer primarily takes place in the other direction today. Several major German firms of
architects are now involved in the planning of entire cities in the Middle Kingdom. However, the set pieces of
traditional Chinese construction remain a constant element of the architecture of our region. None of the
numerous Chinese restaurants in a medium to large city can do without them. Even the most basic Asian shop or
Thai takeaway serves them up. The ceramic house models of lna Weber do not reveal whether this is the result
of the misunderstandings of global cultural exchange, to which Voltaire himself also fell victim. However, they do
give us cause to brood, along the winding paths of the connections between peoples over space and time. lt is
part of the subversive artistic strategy of lna Weber to direct her gaze at the ways in which our cities are
designed, shaped by human hands, mostly profanely banal and thus almost faded from memory. She presents us
with the resulting apparently surprisingly unconventional set pieces in cheer‐ fully revelatory and disconcertingly
dimensioned model situations as cryptic traps.
At that her art is the sensually concrete, and simultaneously reflected, confrontation with those aporias things
graphic get involved with once the world as such turns increasingly abstract and questionable. The artist’s
attitude here is neither pessimistic nor cynical. It is not ideological or utopian, neither is it openly militant, but
informed by the cautious security of the type of drifting gambler and “tinker” that uses the everyday equally as a
supplier of material and a construction site, who presents it as a given that can be infiltrated. Back of nestling up
against the given and known, a precise image formation sets in whose play with reality is neither simple
repetition nor definite commentary. In the course structural as well as altogether subjective levels become
visible and unfold each their specific dynamics. (Harald Uhr)
Ina Weber (*1964) lives and works in Berlin.
Soloshows (selection): 2015 Weg nach Dort (with Vincent Tavenne), Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund; Weg nach weiter (with
Vincent Tavenne), M29, Köln 2014 Good Friends, Galerie Hammelehle and Ahrens, Cologne; Reinweiß (with Thomas
Rentmeister), St. Gertrud, Cologne; Neueröffnung, Gmünder Kunstverein, Schwäbisch Gmünd; Fire Exit, Marburger
Kunstverein 2013 Hier, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin and Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst 2012 Zur feuchten Ecke, Galerie
Andreas Höhne, Munich 2011 Mix Cafe, Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin; Kommt Runter, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Groupshows (selection): 2015 Ärger im Paradies, Kunst‐ und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn 2014
Hello Goodbye, Laura Mars Gallery, Berlin; Happy birthday babyboomer, Galerie der Stadt Backnang; 2013 Nur hier –
Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundes‐ republik Deutschland; Back to Earth. Von Picasso bis Ai Wewei – die
Wiederentdeckung der Keramik in der Kunst, Herbert Gerisch Stiftung, Neumünster; Ein ahnungsloser Traum vom Park,
Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach; Stadt in Sicht – Werke aus der Sammlung Deutsche Bank, Museum Ostwall im
Dortmunder U; Make active Choices, Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg; Back to Earth, Herbert Gerisch Stiftung, Neumünster
2012 Ab in die Ecke!, Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst 2011 Mobilisieren, Städtische Galerie Nordhorn, Nordhorn; Taktiken
des Wilderns, ORTung 2010, Kunstverein Salzburg; I love Aldi, Wilhelm‐Hack‐Museum Ludwigshafen 2010 Urban Visions,
Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai; Does City/Münster matter?, Ausstellungshalle zeitgenössische Kunst, Münster;
LARGER THAN LIFE – STRANGER THAN FICTION, Triennale Kleinplastik, Fellbach; Happy End, Kunsthalle Göppingen.
Exhibition period: Saturday, 12th September – Saturday, 10th October 2015
Finissage: Saturday, 10th October 2015
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Image caption: via Laura Mars Gallery – Ina Weber
Ina Weber – Laura Mars Gallery – Kunst in Berlin ART@Berlin
