Ich Weiß Nicht.- Anne Berning
03/Feb/2024 - 23/Mar/2024
Espacio Minimo Gallery presents the fifth solo exhibition of ANNE BERNING. Entitled Ich Weiß Nicht (I don’t know), the exhibition brings together the new production of paintings, large-formait oil paintings on canvas, and ceramic sculptures, on which the artist has been working since her last appearance in our space. A set of works recently created delve into the complex interrelationships and interpellations between painting, its history and its reflection, in various media.
For some time now, she has devoted herself to the interaction between painting and text, the result is a hybrid between the text itself and the color space: a commentary and expansion of (written) language using the media of painting and, at the same time, evidencing a break with pure abstracion. In this way, the paintings ifself, the interaction of color, surface and space on the canvas, transforms the apparent clarity of words or text into ambiguity and ambivalence.
The text, which is also the title indeed, has a double function in the artist’s word. Firstly, structural, articulating an approximate framework on the surface of the canvas, a kind of grid or geometry, in front and behind which the color spaces move through a framework that defines the tectonics of the image. Secondly, the text, beyond the formal support, also fulfills its purpose in terms of content and meaning: Melancholy, Fichten, Feige + Faul, Lieber Nicht…
Thus, the painting entitled, Ich Weiß Nicht (I don’t know) refers directly to the artistic process, which is neither programmatic nor conceptual, but open and searching, perplexed, stumbled, but also euphoric, in a trance, sleepwalking, enthusiastic… It is, furthermore, the beginning of a well-known poem by Heinrich Heine, Lorelei: “Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten, dass ich so traurig bin (…)” – “I don’t know what it can mean, that I’m so sad (…)” In the same way that Heine’s poems always played ironically wiith the romantic attitude, Berning’s text messages are never unequivocal, but rather ambivalent and allow for different readings and interpretations.
A small group of ceramic pieces, of various craftmanship, complement the exhibition in an effort to push the limits of painting to new media. A medium, sculpture in this case, in which form, color, and structure establish a game where volume and three-dimensionality are subordinated to echoes and reminiscences of the pictorial.
ANNE BERNING (Werl, Germany, 1958) has held individual shows at Kunsthalle in Bremerhaven, at Städtische Galerie Waldkraiburg, at CAC (Center of Contemporary Art) in Málaga and she has participated in distinguished collective shows as “Io non ho paura del colore” at Villa Piccolomini of Rome, “Aldrei Nie Never” in Living Art Museum of Reykiavik, “Wolkenbilder” in Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, “Wir gemalt” in Städtische Galerie Neunkirchen, “Don” in Chianti Fundation of Texas, “Save the day” at modern Art museum of Frankfurt or “Die Orte der Kunst” at Sprengel Museum of Hannover. She has also participated in important art fairs such us ARCO, Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Forum Berlin, SHContemporary of Shanghai or CIGE in Beijing.
