The Raven Is Dead - introducing works by Gitte Schäfer

by Henrikke Nielsen

Recently there has been a lot of talk about the sampling artist as a DJ, but I think no description could be further away from Gitte Schäfer’s approach. There is something comfortably old fashioned about her style, though she does indeed sample and makes use of the assemblage as well as objet trouvé. But in opposition to many other artists that are reinventing or –discovering the bliss of appropriation, there are no quick stories behind Schäfer’s images and objects that make them all fit together in a smart and convenient way. Or put in another way: there are no stories that have to be told in order to comprehend what they are about. But this does not equal pure aesthetic and handicraft, though both in fact play a crucial role in Schäfer’s pieces.

At her first solo-show Schäfer presented a series of small-scale oil paintings (Jungfernfahrt, chouakri-brahms, Berlin, 2002). The motifs, painted with quick brushstrokes in a sketch-like but rather precise manner, stemmed from cheap postcards, magazine cuttings and travel brochures. The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, a snowy mountain landscape, a porcelain figure of an undefined bird, a girl’s leg with a chequered sock and a lack shoe. In most cases the titles were just as laconic as the images (e.g. “Waldbrand”/”Forest Fire” or “Lanterne” /“Lantern”), and the paintings were hung in a straight line at eye level. A tight presentation, but one would look in vain for an obvious connection between the images, except from the fact that they were gathered here at the same level, given the same amount of attention, painted in the same unconstrained style. Later, Schäfer presented a series held exclusively in white and blue tones, mainly depicting motifs from faience porcelain: hunting scenes, swans and ornamental fragments (Schäfer’s graduation show at Kunsthochschule Berlin – Weißensee, 2003). These familiar motifs, transferred from porcelain to canvas, became somewhat strange, at times even morbid, and their detachment from their porcelain-context indicated a process that turns up in much subsequent work by Schäfer. Some of the motifs were later used in drawings, either on paper or on massive blocks of white-painted wood that obtain the character of tangible objects, somehow opposing the delicate pencil-drawn motifs of birds, flowers and berries. Motifs that one would find on a pillow at grandma’s house or decorating a vase in a hut somewhere in the Alps. Motifs that are familiar, but normally dismissed (or contrarily celebrated) as kitsch. In Schäfer’s drawings their decorative function is pre-empted, and they are heightened to images in their own right.

For the exhibition Landpartie, Schäfer turned hunting scenes into a central feature of the exhibition (Landpartie at Kunstraum Berlin, Berlin, 2003). A hunter’s raised hide was placed in the middle of the gallery (which has a very high ceiling), and the audience was invited to climb the ladder and have a look from inside. Here, the view of a field that the hunter would normally have in front of him was replaced by a drawing on parchment paper, mounted in a light box. It depicted a panoramic view of a lake surrounded by a forest and huge mountains in the background. The drawing was brought together by several small, individual scenarios, which made the perspective and scale somewhat out of place. To the right a frigate, way too big for the lake, is passing a small fair-tale-like castle. In the middle, an over-dimensioned hunting scene is taking place and in the foreground there is a stork and a fox, as well as a swan to the right. The view of “nature” that one gets from the hide rise is the one covering the home of the hunter that would normally be sitting there: from plates on the wall, vases, souvenirs and landscape paintings. It is a very romantic view of nature, and it is on display, which is stressed in Schäfer’s version, since it is mounted in a light box. In general nature is very present in Schäfer’s work, in the shape of trees, lakes, rivers, mountains, all sorts of birds, flowers, pigs, berries, and leaves. But it is always a highly artificial and stylised representation of nature, mediated through folk culture. For the exhibition Landpartie 2, alongside the hide, another object was presented in a very museum-like manner: in one of the gallery walls, a lit up space was made for the display of an ikebana: the Japanese technique of assembling different flowers and plants in a symbolic and beautiful way (Landpartie 2Ikebana (im freien Stil), 2003, consists of various branches and small wood-elements, assembled to form a delicate still life. Natural and artificial elements are mixed: dried flower buds and fragments from a chandelier or furniture. Nature constrained and represented in the most artificial way; heightened to an object of desire and presented in a showcase that would be worthy of a diamond.

This dichotomy between nature and cultural representations of it can also be traced in Schäfer’s more recent work, where she has continued the displacement of images from objects found at the flee market and at bric-a-brac shops. But the range of media, techniques and styles is becoming still more diverse, and recently whole walls have been turned into collages consisting of paintings, drawings and objects (the wall-presentations at The Inaugural Show and Artforum Berlin the same year). Figurative scenes are transferred via various techniques of painting and drawing, but also more abstract images have been added. Patterns are composed with the help of the round edge of a beer mat, or a certain detail of a reproduction of a Klee painting is transferred to a board that used to be part of an old cupboard. Other motifs have been made by staining, scratching or drawing on wooden boards, and in general objects are beginning to take up more space among the drawings and paintings. Half-reliefs are carved in plaster - and in this case Schäfer is actually taking over on one of the techniques of her flea market discoveries, which she would normally transfer to drawing or painting. Sometimes objects are left as they were found or they are only slightly manipulated, like a stool painted all white, so that it looks as if it is made out of plaster. Other pieces of furniture are completely taken apart and then reassembled in order to form new sculptures or objects: a sun is made out of a piece of wood and old antenna-elements. Or a tower of piled up, rustic, wooden candle-holders appears like an organic, abstract sculpture. In general, a delicate balance between rustic and modern elements is obtained by aligning folkloric objects with furniture-elements from the 1950s-70s, as well as abstract and figurative painting. But rather than expressing an intended mixture of high – and low culture, such hierarchies seem completely dissolved in Schäfer’s work. Motifs, techniques and furniture constituents remain recognisable as individual elements exuding bygone days, but through the way they are arranged and mixed, a range of different possible journeys are being offered.

The titles may function as a point of departure for these journeys. Like in her earlier paintings, some are rational and descriptive (e.g. “Sonne” / “Sun” or “Pfau” /”Peacock”), but most of them carry proper names that seem to stem from another period of time - just like the aesthetic. Some of them are old-fashioned German names like “Helma” (an abstract geometric painting on a piece of metal grating), “Malva” (a similar motif on a piece of bast), “William” (a painting of a forest), or “Oscar” (a drawing of a fish). Other objects carry more exotic names like “Abraxas”, “Albus” or "Ipolyi" (all assembled or painted objects), and are like souvenirs from far-away countries that find their confident space among the familiar furniture at home. These arbitrary names contribute to the sense of remoteness, melancholy or even nostalgia one senses in front of Schäfer’s work. But it is like a future nostalgia. Like the memory of a travel not yet experienced or a place not yet visited. Or the craving for something yet to be lost. Like the title of Schäfer’s most recent exhibition at Kirkhoff announces: The Raven is Dead.