Gitte Schäfer
The Raven Is Dead
Kirkhoff is proud to present Gitte Schäfer’s first solo exhibition
at the gallery. Schäfer is born in Stuttgart in 1972 and lives in
Berlin.
For the exhibition The Raven Is Dead Schäfer has created new works in
different materials, techniques and medias, such as drawings,
paintings, collages, 3-dimensional panels in MDF, reliefs cut in
plaster, objects trouvés and furniture that resemble an interior or a
stage design. Equivalent to the variation of technique and media, the
artist points to other connotations with the title The Raven Is Dead.
The title is not descriptive but functions as another layer of meaning
and opens for a series of possible readings.
Characteristic of Schäfer’s production is a re-contextualization of
works: She incorporates and connects objects from fleemarkets,
watercolours from anonymous artists, details from famous artists’
works, plants from nature; she creates abstract paintings with the
round edges of a beer mat, she deconstructs furniture and puts them
together in new forms. The connection of objects creates new contexts,
creates different layers and aesthetics, both high and low. In this
respect, she works with ‘art and life’, connecting objets trouvés from
nature and everyday life and turning them into art objects because of
their sculptural qualities.
In Schäfer’s intimate paintings and drawings she concentrates on
cultural emblems and has previously worked with romantic or romantized
motifs, collected from magazines, postcards or china. Schäfer borrows
from already existing works and earlier styles, such as the baroque,
abstraction or concrete art. The individual motifs or the technique
will probably resemble something familiar, but the presentation of all
the works as a whole suggests numerous connotations and approaches to
the works. In general, the exhibition is characterized by aspects of
time through the presentation of styles, the work process, the motifs
and the recontextualization.
Gitte Schäfer is educated at Chelsea College of Art and the
Kunsthochschule Berlin, Weißensee 2003. She participated at The
Inaugural Show at Kirkhoff, February 2004 and showed solo at Chouakri
Brahms Berlin in 2004. She’ll show solo at Perry Rubenstein Gallery,
March 2005.
