The visible Woman, sculptures, paintings and drawings
The visible Woman
Galerie Nicola von Senger is pleased to present Elke Krystufek's exhibition The
Visible Woman. The Viennese artist shows a group of works (sculptures, paintings,
drawings) that engage the themes of religion and communication in a number of
different ways, and which resume the work from her exhibition Proper Use that was
shown at the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens this autumn.
The brain is at the centre of this exhibition as the organ that produces religious
thought and ideas. Over the years, these ideas have established themselves as
principles. They rest on male conservative and archaic ideas that preconceptualise
a patriarchal world-view and order. The architecture of this order,
thought up by the male brain, which is said to have better spatial imaginary abilities
than the female, stands monumentally and self-evidently as a cathedral at the
heart of religious history. Elke Krystufek's brain sculpture stands similarly solid and
oversized in the exhibition space. The brain has two cerebral hemispheres and is
surrounded by works that put religious thought in perspective. This brain is also the
organ which forms contrary thoughts, which withdraws from this order, and which
questions religious and social norms. Here “God" is multiplied into sixteen word
sculptures, a term that bridges the rational world with the world of faith in various
languages and across cultures. It can be conceived in different ways, exists as a
construct of the brain and is transposed into a real dimension through language.
Prayer is immaterial. The word sculptures are light objects, communicable - in one
word. Unlike spatial imagination, the ability to communicate is a strength of the
female brain, which is of great importance in the communication age. Religion,
which has sidelined the woman, made her body a temple, to be sure, but kept her
chaste and hidden, encounters Elke Krystufek's scenario of The Visible Woman,
which frees her from obscurity, makes her visible, and opens a new discourse.
Opening: 12 January 2006 6 - 8 pm
Galerie Nicola von Senger AG
Bleicherweg 45, CH-Zurich
Opening hours: Tue - Fri 9.30am - 6pm / Sat 12 - 4pm