“Structures of Being,” review by Beate Scheder
”Structures of Being“
by Beate Scheder
”It is fitting that Okka-Esther Hungerbühler has named her fourth solo exhibition at Haverkampf Leistenschneider “Creature.” Exhibitions by the Berlin-based artist are often populated by all kinds of strange creatures. These are often animated beings cobbled together from crude craft materials.
In the new exhibition, however, there is really only one such piece: Death, dressed up as a chick from a Halloween costume, who lets out a croaking voice when you give him a rough pat on the shoulder. Otherwise, you have to move around yourself. Through the rooms, of course. Past wall works, collages, and paintings, and sticky sculptures, a knee-high menagerie set consisting of salt and pepper shakers, for example.
The tour of the largest of the four exhibition rooms becomes a gymnastic exercise. Hungerbühler has hung a large number of “connection paintings” in it, pairs of textile images held together by fabric tubes.
These, in turn, dangle from wall to wall, crisscrossing the room, so that you have to snake your way past them or climb over them. Very carefully, of course. Is that perhaps the trick? Are you yourself the creature in question?”
Read the article here (German)
