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Christiane Loehr, "fastening oneself in the moment"October 8th - December 24th, 2022 (closed: November 7th-25th) taguchi fine art, Tokyo |
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Born in Wiesbaden in Germany in 1965, Christiane Loehr now resides in Cologne, Germany and Prato, Italy. After studying Egyptology, Archeology and History at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-University, Bonn and Art Education and German studies at the Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, she got Meisterschuelerin from Jannis Kounellis at the Art Academy in Duesseldorf in 1996. She is a participant in the 49th Venice Biennale "Plateau of Humankind" organized by Harald Szeemann in 2001 and the winner of Pino Pascali Award 2016. She has held many exhibitions all around the world as at the Villa and Collection Panza in Varese in 2010 and her works are housed in many museums and prominent private collections. Recently she has more and more opportunities of solo exhibitions at museums; Museo e Real Bosco Di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy in 2020, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin in 2021, Chateau Chaumont-sur-Loire, Domaine Regional de Chaumont-sur-Loire, France and Contemporary Art and Architecture Gallery, House of Art Ceske Budejovice, Czech this year. Christiane Loehr's examination of form and space is achieved by material that is uncommon to the history of sculpture. She creates her sculptures with natural materials as plant seeds, plant stems, horse hairs and dog hairs. Cushion with the fluff of dandelion, temple with the pile of ivy seeds, dome with grass stalks, bag of hairnet filled with thistle seeds, cat's cradle like form with needles and horse hairs, and so on. They are physically so small and look so delicate that we could miss them at first. Once we come close and observe them, however, they would be transformed into very strong construction dominating the surrounding space and we might be overwhelmed by the power of them. Due to the uniqueness of her materials for the sculptures, one might think that her concern lies in plants and animals. It is true that the prettiness and the beauty that originally belong to the organic form and the color of plants are elements of her works. However, the reason why Christiane Loehr decided to choose plants and animal hairs is that she is accustomed to them since her childhood and therefore knows their characters very well. In addition, she got a conviction to do this from her experience of the study with Jannis Kounellis who is the center of an Italian art movement, "Arte Povera", that is characterized by the use of familiar things we can see in our daily life but unusual to sculpture as its material. The research of Christiane Loehr to come to a form is nothing less than to carefully and patiently examine the structure and function that the material itself has inherently, and then to reconstruct them so as to visually amplify those structures and functions. Through the conversation with the material and its surrounding space, she explores the mathematical law, the power, the order, the structure behind this visible world that establish nature and organic matters, trying to seek what gives the unity to this world, makes this world together. The same is true for her works on paper, her pencil drawings and oil pastel drawings. Even though she uses the form of plant or grass as a motif, she never traces anything in front of her. As a sculptor, her interest is only one point that is "how to divide the two dimensional white space and make a new order", which gives a strong sense of tension to her works on paper. She is well noticed in Japan by her participation in the group show "Lifescape" at Shiseido Gallery in Tokyo (2014) and her solo show "Encircling the Orbit" at Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum in Shizuoka (2015). She also participated in a five artists' show at Sakura City Museum of Art, Chiba "Chaosmos 5: To View a World within a Grain of Sand" (2017). On this occasion, her recent drawings and sculptures will be on view. Please come to take a look. Checklist of the installation 1. Burr Bowl, 2020 burrs 10 x 10 x 3 cm 2. Burr Felt, 2022 dog hairs, burrs and needles 15 x 14 x 1 cm 3. Big Double Dome, 2022 grass stalks 62 x 60 x 60 cm 4. Big Dome, 2022 grass stalks 43 x 29 x 28 cm 5. Squred Corn Form, 2022 grass stalks 25 x 44 x 44 cm 6. Oval Cube, 2022 plant stalks 15 x 23 x 14 cm 7. Oval Bowl Form, 2022 plant stalks 5.5 x 14 x 11 cm 8. Untitled, 2022 graphite on paper 70 x 100 cm 9. Untitled, 2022 graphite on paper 70 x 100 cm 10. Untitled, 2022 graphite on paper 70 x 100 cm 11. Untitled, 2022 ink on paper 100 x 76 cm 12. Untitled, 2022 ink on paper 100 x 76 cm 13. Untitled, 2022 graphite on paper 27 x 20 cm 14. Untitled, 2022 graphite on paper 27 x 20 cm |