Maike Gräf – Weder Schwarz noch Weiß
12.04. – 14.09.2013
back to overviewWeder Schwarz noch Weiß? Das stimmt doch nicht! Die Figuren sind doch schwarz und weiß! Gut, einige sind zum Teil auch bunt, im Großen und Ganzen aber sind Schwarz und Weiß die bestimmenden Farben, dazu kommt die natürliche Farbe des Materials Holz.
Da ist Nõ, ihre meditative Körperhaltung mutet asiatisch an, macht sie Schattenboxen oder eine Karateübung? Da ist der kleine Play Boy, dessen Gesichtszüge aus Quadraten und Kreisen bestehen, er geht herausfordernd und angriffslustig mit Zeigefinger und Penis auf den Betrachter zu.
Die schwarz-weiße Farbe verleiht den Figuren Zeichenhaftigkeit, die schwarz gezeichneten Kanten und weißen Flächen wirken wie zweidimensionale Skizzen. Schwarz und Weiß, Skulptur und Zeichnung, das scheinen nicht die einzigen Gegensätze zu sein.
Die Figuren lassen an Comic-Stripes, Pop-Art und japanische Mangas denken aber auch an Kultfiguren, sie erscheinen im Moment der Bewegung und fordern heraus, reizen, machen an, sie können sich auch zurückziehen, nicht mehr extrovertiert sein, sondern in sich versunken, die Bewegung ist gleichzeitig Meditation und kraftvolle Leidenschaft.
Wer sich vermeintlich an Spielzeug erinnert fühlt, erlebt eine Täuschung, die sexuell aufgeladenen Figuren verführen den Betrachter auch in der Materialität, was leicht erscheint, ist tatsächlich ein massives Stück Holz.
In ihrer ersten Einzelausstellung in der Stern-Wywiol Galerie entführt uns die Berliner Künstlerin Maike Gräf, geb. 1976, in eine Welt der Gegensätze, Widersprüche und Täuschungen. Die klassische Bildhauergestalt der Figura Serpentinata steht im Gewand von heute vor uns, frech und verspielt, still und rätselhaft, erst nach längerem Hinschauen erschließt sich ihre ganze Vielfalt.
Maike Gräf spielt auf vielen Ebenen mit unserem kollektiven Kulturgedächtnis und schafft aus Vertrautem aufregend Neues.
Speech at the vernissage of the exhibition "Neither Black nor White" Maike Gräf by Dr Kathrin Reeckmann, 11.04.2013
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In the west of Hamburg, a large shopping centre is currently vying for our attention. Large posters show two attractive young women and underneath it says:
"A world that fulfils our every wish".
What a promise! What big words for a collection of retail shops offering clothes, shoes and electronic goods.
Everywhere today we encounter the stylistic device of exaggeration, emotionalisation, eventisation of even the most mundane of tasks such as shopping or eating. These marketing techniques have long since reached the everyday lives of many people, be it in media reporting, in the fast pace of trends or in our expectations of life in general.
Maike Gräf's figures do not do things by halves either:
- The giant babies of Peaceful War Toys are as curious, fearless and confident as you could wish for
- The playboy makes unambiguous advances towards his counterpart and makes everyone green with envy in the process.
- The vamp shows off his charms in a classic pose that none of his sex companions could ever manage.
In their literalisation of concepts, idioms and ideas/promises, Maike Gräf's sculptures are legitimate descendants of Pop Art as we have known it since the 1960s. At the same time, they are only conceivable today: The artist draws with full hands from the image fundus of our contemporary global consumer culture, in which everything is always instantly available (at least virtually). Have you noticed that Maike Gräf's cosmos only knows youth? No one has time for procrastination here, all needs must be satisfied immediately. Her figures live as if there were no tomorrow, and yet the hint of their mortality is inscribed in all of them with the baby-like or aged, bald heads and their fragile, skeleton-like physicality.
Maike Gräf's sculptures are contemporary, but also ancient: they know how to depict things so abbreviated, compact and concise because they are precisely observed and exaggerated beyond measure. In this they resemble - in form as well as in content - comic figures that sum up all facets of human existence, from Superman to the eternal loser. Comics, cartoons and graffiti are among the most innovative forms of expression of our time. Succinct and concise, they speak their own language. In the sometimes grotesque, sometimes threatening, sometimes childlike exaggeration of their characters, in the deliberate exaggeration of forms and proportions or in the expressive body language, Maike Gräf's sculptures, just like many comics, are ultimately of archaic origin and show how old our patterns of perception actually are: Compare this, for example, with cave paintings, with Stone Age art such as the Venus of Willendorf or with fetishes and masks.
The depiction of the human figure in wood is probably one of the oldest themes in art. The raw, even superficially artless formal language of Maike Gräf's sculptures speaks of the toil of wresting a form from the brittle material. We see the traces of tools such as chain saws and chisels, estimate the dimensions of the trunk from which the figures are cut in one piece. Maike Gräf dissects her figures into cubically broken individual parts, changes the proportions, emphasises individual features and omits others altogether. The figures are always made with an all-eye view, take possession of the surrounding space and thus sometimes have something almost monumental about them.
Maike Gräf is a virtuoso who uses her perfect mastery of material and form only to cover them up with a thick layer of varnish.
Instead of clear certainties, she deceives. She makes the natural material look artificial, even cheap, only to emphasise the grown materiality in the next moment by leaving wood paint, cracks and chips in place.
You can also see all these design principles in the reliefs that Maike Gräf has been making for a good year now and which can be considered a variant of the classical sculpture drawing. Sculpture drawings are so interesting because, at their best, they are illuminating commentaries on the three-dimensional works. In her reliefs, Maike Gräf plays with perspective, breaks down the bodies into faceted individual parts, lets large lines of force run across the surface. She thus reflects her working method in the sculptures and at the same time presents us with the inhabitants of her world as if in a picture gallery.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a gallery for contemporary sculpture, we are proud to have someone like Maike Gräf as a guest, who works in such a new and old way at the same time.
Mr Volkmar Wywiol recognised this immediately at his first meeting with the artist and ordered from her what is one of the most exciting subjects in classical sculpture: an act of love. We have the honour of presenting the artist's latest work to the public for the first time: Verliebt verholzt, completed three weeks ago.
The promise of the world that fulfils our every wish, mentioned at the beginning, is seen here from the perspective of classical mythology: The story of Apollo and Daphne is depicted: Apollo mocks Eros, the god of love, as a bad shot, and the latter takes revenge in his own way: He hits Apollo with an arrow that makes him feel undying love for the nymph Daphne. Daphne, on the other hand, is hit by an arrow that has the exact opposite effect. As a result, Apollo presses Daphne hard. Finally, she is so exhausted by the persecution that she begs her father Peneios to change her form, which is so arousing to Apollo. The father complies with this wish and transforms the daughter into a laurel tree. The radical nature of the wish fulfilment brings to mind Oscar Wilde, who remarked: "When the gods want to punish us, they hear our prayers.
Maike Gräf approaches the subject in her own way: She interprets the story with her own energy, letting Apollo reach the goal of his wishes and Daphne as well. Where Ovid leaves the details open, she takes on the union, the drasticness of which does not at all surprise the connoisseur of ancient sagas. Maike Gräf creates an art out of wood and then lets it return to the wood - Ovid's story merges here with the artist's artistic approach in astonishing consistency.
Ladies and gentlemen, I could lecture you for hours about this sculpture. But we have the artist as our guest this evening - so take the opportunity to talk to her personally, ask questions, discuss and get to know the cosmos of Maike Gräf, which we present to you this evening in lavish abundance.
Thank you very much for your attention.