Anna Solal / Àngels Miralda

Anna Solal
adresse aux gémonies
March 18–April 22, 2022

Social dimensions form the essence of Anna Solal’s artistic practice. Portraying the human collective—sometimes allegorically, sometimes figuratively and pointedly—are also at the heart of her new work “Arena” (2022). Solal lets us grasp the historical dimension of human organizations by juxtaposing places like the amphitheatre, abandoned battlefields, but also digital social platforms. Interpersonal interactions, but also the relationship of humans to their environment and the related ecological aspect plays a central role. The French artist, who first studied drawing and later sculpture at the Arts Visuels de La Cambre Bruxelles, creates mysterious bricolages and an ambivalent interplay of symbols, cut-out drawings, various materialities and mechanical as well as everyday found objects, in whose surfaces a story is already inscribed. The material always dictates form, structure and colour. Each action is a compromise between artistic sensibility and given material. Her works, which can be presented both on the wall and on the floor, are in a hybrid state between drawing and sculpture, between two- and three-dimensionality. Anna Solal’s practice is underpinned by philosophy and a sensual intellectual aspect, especially evident in the drawings. It contrasts with her use of mechanical industrial objects and highlights Solal’s sense for confrontation. 

Text by Dr. Luisa Seipp. Read more. Supported by Stiftung Kunstfonds and Neustart Kultur.

Materials for Virtue / Incandescent Flare
Yen Chun Lin, Teresa Margolles, Laura Ní Fhlaibhín, Jennifer Tee
Curated by Àngels Miralda
May 6–June 11, 2022. Opening: May 5.

In the face of everything, the flowers were still blossoming.From contemporary geopolitics to rituals of passage, grief has been a driving force behind spirituality, artistic making, and monumentality; the way these events are materially captured is the work of artists. In Juárez, northern Mexico, high indexes of femicides continue to plague the population. Teresa Margolles uses fabric to collect traces of the landscapes where bodies were found; in doing so, she erases the distance between viewer and mediated image. Laura Ní Fhlaibhín’s works in oil and metal reference personal histories, amulets for an ecstatic afterlife, Irish folklore, and the mortal reality of rural petro-culture. In Yen Chun Lin’s new works in metal, personal experience and heritage meld once again into an installation that references cosmic listening, love and reincarnation. Jennifer Tee’ tulip petal collages Tampan Tulip (2014-present) keep alive the art of Indonesian weavings to reflect on migration, loss of homelands, and the passage of life through traditional designs originally made for funerary purposes. Over two years have passed of daily numeric figures representing mounting tolls of catastrophe followed by news of the remorseless carnage of war. The value of culture amid atrocity is our common quest for survival and memory.

Text by Àngels Miralda. Supported by Culture Ireland and Taiwan in Deutschland.

Subscribe to the Britta Rettberg newsletter.