Whether Venice, Sardinia or Uluru - places where beauty becomes a curse are rapidly increasing. Overtourism but also exaggerated expectations are becoming the norm in the race to travel the world. Lena Marie Emrichs' exhibition soft cruelties revolves around the resulting construction of reality, fiction and speculation. In particular, Emrichs illuminates those moments in which the pursuit of individual pleasure comes into conflict with moral principles. The title thus describes that uneasy feeling that we know will inevitably arise when we decide not to pay the 1.99 euros for CO2 compensation when booking a flight.
For this latest production, the artist has developed sunshades, sand-coloured inlaid pictures, wishing wells and a bench from the Garden of Eden from everyday objects and materials that she has taken out of their context, manipulated, recreated and/or over-aesthetised. Characteristic is the use of technical materials in new contexts. Polished surfaces, maple, bamboo, coloured sprinkles - in the new works, a cool yet poetic formal language meets materials from contrary fields of application. The palette ranges from a high-quality architectural material HIMACS to a group of slightly trashy parasols made of plastic raffia to large-format window films. Despite all realism, the individual works remain mostly associative and suggestive in the group, so that in the end the question remains whether we are not all terribel tourist? But first: Welcome to Paradise by Lena Marie Emrich.
special opening hours during Berlin Art Week: 13-15.9.2023 1-8 pm
