Quoting Sandra Strele from Riga, Latvia, who entitled her work cycle of paintings that render institutional exhibition halls and Kunsthalle interiers with male spectators gazing female nudes hung around we show here “Exhibitions That Never Happened” offering for once the female gaze at institutional hierarchies and politics of display of art that engages in a critical way with the conventional exhibition making, art dealing and presentation modes.
Strele’s pictures within pictures are strictly organised showing spaces that structure our gaze along grids and orders within geometrically arranged halls instrumentalising our seeing. She depicts spaces filled with paintings that are supposed to be sold to collectors, she depicts exhibitions that mostly enable art dealers to claim higher prices for artworks that have a rich exhibition history. Pictures from “Exhibitions that Never Happened” however subvert this system of selling and re-selling at higher prices. Prints of paintings about paintings in non-existent exhibition contexts focus on the issues of copy and original and on the artistic modes of expression. They introduce us into estranged places, where we find ourselves viewing people viewing works in rectangular frames within vast rectangular halls.
In some of Strele’s paintings grids and structures are visually broken up by lush vegetation that takes over subverting male dominated orders of showing art. Her works with nature motives remind us of Paul Klee’s garden series whereas one can’t help thinking of Antoine Watteau’s seminal work “Art Dealer Gersaint’s Shop Window” when contemplating her “Exhibitions” accurately fitted into the oil on canvass formats with much precision and love to detail. The whole project is a subtle attempt at institutional critique, introducing it to bigger audiences in the Art in Public Spaces at Nachbarschaftszentrum Brunnentreff along with works by Diana Sprenger, Susanne Meier zu Eissen-Rau, Janos Tarko, Julia Maier and Fabrizio Tedeschi invited by us in support of non-conformist artistic positions within the possibilities at our disposal.
(1 ) Hans Ulrich Obrist. A Brief History of Curating, 2008 Hans Ulrich Obrist, JRP/Ringier Kunstverlag
Nachbarschaftszentrum Brunnentreff. Volkssolidarität, Brunnenstr. 145/ (U Bahn Bernauerstrasse/ Berliner Mauerdenkmal) D-10115 Berlin
until 27.8. 2023
