A Weekly Artwork Selection
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Spotlight: A Weekly Artwork Selection

Isa Melsheimer: false ruins and lost innocence 1, 2020

Photo © Andrea Rossetti

Isa Melsheimer
false ruins and lost innocence 1, 2020
Ceramic, plinth
104 x 80,5 x 122 cm (work)
50 x 160 x 110 cm (plinth)
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This work is included in Isa Melsheimer's current exhibition at the gallery, false ruins and lost innocence, on view until March 20, 2021 by appointment only.
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Photo © Andrea Rossetti

The large-scale ceramic takes as point of departure the so-called Cuckoo Coffee House in Da Nang, Vietnam, an airy building from 2019 designed by a young Vietnamese architectural firm called Tropical Space. Inside the multiple nestled shapes overlooking an enclosed courtyard, a small forest of trees appears to thrive, their trunks richly glazed.

The new sculpture is one of the artist’s largest and technically complex ceramics to date. Similar to her idiosyncratic use of concrete, Melsheimer who began to work with the material in 2013, has pushed the boundaries of this craft in scale and technique, making the medium completely her own.

Designed by the young Vietnamese architectural firm Tropical Space, the so-called Cuckoo Coffee House in Da Nang, Vietnam, is built across an open courtyard. Photo © Oki Hiroyuki

The work exemplifies the increasing presence of organic elements in Melsheimer’s ceramic works. Reinforced by the artist’s 2017 residency on Fogo Islands which brought out an engagement with nature that has always been present but has gained urgency, perhaps as a consequence of ecological debates.

 

Online Viewing Room

false ruins and lost innocence
Online Viewing Room
Through March 27, 2021
www.estherschipper.com

An Online Viewing Room dedicated to Isa Melsheimer’s third solo exhibition with the gallery, featuring exclusive video content of the artist presenting her new works.

Entitled false ruins and lost innocence, the exhibition includes three large-scale ceramics, textile works, and a suite of gouaches. The artist, whose work engages with modernist, postmodernist, and brutalist aesthetics, has in recent years increasingly introduced organic elements into the buildings, infused by her reading of post-human theoretical debates, as well as her engagement with Metabolist architecture, a movement originating in 1960s Japan.

Click the image to watch Isa Melsheimer take you on a tour through the exhibition.

SEE INSIDE THE EXHIBITION
 
Isa Melsheimer (b.1968 in Neuss, Germany), lives and works in Berlin. Known for her engagement with the history of architectural styles—especially the legacy of Modernism and 1950s–70s examples of concrete architecture—Isa Melsheimer’s works are expressions of her intense research as well as formal investigations. The artist acts as archeologist of often forgotten or neglected buildings, recreating their distinctive shapes both from her study and from her vivid re-imagining of the forms and the spirit of the structures.The shift of scale inherent in the artist’s allusion to architectural structures often lets the works, made from poured concrete, appear as benches, stool-like objects, tiered steps or hollow containers that sometimes double as sites of constructed exotic vegetation. <br><br>Recent solo exhibitions include: <b>Der unerfreuliche Zustand der Textur,</b> KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2020); <b>Rain,</b> le 19, Crac – Centre régional d'art contemporain, Montbéliard (2018–19); <b>Metaboliten,</b> Kunstverein Heppenheim, Heppenheim (2018); <b>Psychotropische Landschaften,</b> Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst, Delmenhorst (2018); <b>The Year of the Whale,</b> Fogo Island Gallery, Fogo Island (2018); <b>Der tote Palast zitterte – zitterte!,</b> Mies van der Rohe House, Berlin (2017); <b>Kontrastbedürfnis,</b> Ernst-Barlach-Haus, Hamburg (2015).<br>

Isa Melsheimer (b.1968 in Neuss, Germany), lives and works in Berlin. Known for her engagement with the history of architectural styles—especially the legacy of Modernism and 1950s–70s examples of concrete architecture—Isa Melsheimer’s works are expressions of her intense research as well as formal investigations. The artist acts as archeologist of often forgotten or neglected buildings, recreating their distinctive shapes both from her study and from her vivid re-imagining of the forms and the spirit of the structures.The shift of scale inherent in the artist’s allusion to architectural structures often lets the works, made from poured concrete, appear as benches, stool-like objects, tiered steps or hollow containers that sometimes double as sites of constructed exotic vegetation.

Recent solo exhibitions include: Der unerfreuliche Zustand der Textur, KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2020); Rain, le 19, Crac – Centre régional d'art contemporain, Montbéliard (2018–19); Metaboliten, Kunstverein Heppenheim, Heppenheim (2018); Psychotropische Landschaften, Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst, Delmenhorst (2018); The Year of the Whale, Fogo Island Gallery, Fogo Island (2018); Der tote Palast zitterte – zitterte!, Mies van der Rohe House, Berlin (2017); Kontrastbedürfnis, Ernst-Barlach-Haus, Hamburg (2015).


Photo © Oliver Mark

 

Reading Corner

Isa Melsheimer<br>

Isa Melsheimer

Psychotropische Landschaften
2018
Publisher: Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst
Language: German & English

Available here

Isa Melsheimer<br>

Isa Melsheimer

Kontrastbedürfnis
2015
Publisher: Verlag für moderne Kunst
Language: German & English

Available here

Isa Melsheimer<br>

Isa Melsheimer

Analogue
2010
Publisher: Carré d'Art-Musée d'art contemporain
Language: English & French

Available here

Isa Melsheimer<br>

Isa Melsheimer

Isa Melsheimer. Kunstpreis der Stadt Nordhorn
2008
Publisher: Stadt Nordhorn
Language: German & English

Available here

 
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