Undine Goldberg presents fresh watercolors and ink drawings and dedicates itself with a retrospective to a grand project, 01 No5 , which Goldberg, together with artist and journalist Manuel Bonik.
Modejahre (Fashion Years) , the 4th exhibition by Undine Goldberg at Laura Mars, presents fresh watercolors
and ink drawings and dedicates itself with a retrospective to a grand project, 01 No5 , which Goldberg, together
with artist and journalist Manuel Bonik, originally presented in the year 2000 in Berlin. Dealing with the subject
of art and fashion and with a published edition of 100 copies, artists magazine 01 No5 was a collaboration of
roughly one hundred artists and curators, among them Maria Lassnig, Pipilotti Rist, and Sarah Lucas. Befitting
the title 01 No5 (actually alluding to the famous Chanel perfume), the project will be shown again now in
Berlin, 15 years later, parallel to Fashion Week. The edition reflects a time when fashion played only a minor
role in Berlin yet was discovered as a source of inspiration by numerous artists buoyed by the spirit of
departure in “new” Berlin.
Manuel Bonik: In the watercolors created between 2012 and 2013 you portray your garments such as your
Burberry trench coat.
Undine Goldberg: Yes; the trench coat, however, was in my possession only briefly. When I first tried it on a
friend told me I’d look like a detective in it. Whether she meant Columbo, Maigret, or Marlowe, she didn’t say.
For me that was an incentive to buy it, as was the price. Alas, this trench coat, too, was only a stage win of sorts
on the way towards the perfect raincoat. Eventually, it proved too large for me and turned into a gift to my
sister, who really enjoys wearing it.
M.B.: Over the years your passion for clothing has time and again found expression in your artistic work. What
came to be were videos, watercolors, and currently those life‐size ink drawings. What induced you to do them?
U.G.: The ink portraits go back to a very engaging dream I had in the summer of 2013. I dreamed my face would
leave an impression on the pillow. In the studio I transformed that dream into a picture and discovered in the
process the radiating flow potency of ink on cotton. Lying on the fabric, I started with tracing my body contour
with a pencil. The performance of the contour drawing lends the pictures their immediacy. The ink thereupon
applied makes for clothing and skin to flow apart. What emerge are serious monsters emancipating themselves
from me.
M.B.: What is it actually that lets you time and again return to the theme of clothing in your art?
U.G.: I was always fascinated with clothing as a game around the staging of the body. No so much in a theatrical
or sexual sense. I’m more interested in concealing the body with fabric, i.e. skin as the exterior deflected from
by way of clothing. That’s what fashion does, too. The staging of this exterior is often an inspiration, and a
subject within my work.
Image: Undine Goldberg - “Junger Freiheitskämpfer (nach Ferdinand Hodler)”, 2014, ink on canvas, 196 x 167 cm, Copyright by the artist, courtesy Laura Mars Gallery
Opening: Wed‐Fri 1‐7 p.m., Sat 1‐5 p.m
Laura Mars Gallery
Bülowstr. 52, Berlin
Wed - Fri 1pm to 7pm, Sat 1pm to 5pm