beyond BEYOND

The exhibition beyond BEYOND from 1.7.-20.8.2022 is a cooperation between MeetFrida and SALOON, a network for women in the visual arts scene that exists in eleven cities worldwide. The eight participating female artists are members of SALOON Hamburg, Dresden, Prague and Vienna. They have embarked on an experiment: What happens when I collaborate with another artist I don't know yet? The results of the four duos are as different as the artists. The exhibition promotes international networking and at the same time affirms the city partnerships Hamburg - Dresden, Hamburg - Prague. The dialogical development of works and forms of presentation leads across city, country and language borders.

Curator: Dr. Franziska Storch, Co-Founder & Co-Director of SALOON Hamburg

Patron: Christian Ancker, Honorary Consul of the Czech Republic in Hamburg

Janina Santamarina (Hamburg) & Stefanie Lüning (Dresden):

Janina Santamarina / Stefanie Lüning: "Durchdringen" (2022), diff. materials, textile knotted from plastic bags

The performative and ephemeral connect the works of Janina Santamarina and Stefanie Lüning. The fabric of the Hamburg artist and the foam bath of the Dresden artist pervade each other in the SALOON exhibition "beyond BEYOND". We are familiar with foam in everyday life when showering and bathing, when it touches the skin over a large area, but hardly noticeable. Tissues touch and envelop us every day like a second skin. Both fabric and foam are characterized by airy interspaces that increase the surface area or volume. The space that foam and fabric occupy has diffuse boundaries at the same time. In the installation "Durchdringen" (2022), these two airy materials meet: foam body and permeable tissue. The openings in the fabric determine the shape of the penetrating foam. Foam arcs with particular cross-sections push through the textile, forming ever-changing landscapes. The foam bubbles crackle softly as they disintegrate.

Adriane Steckhan (Hamburg) & Karíma Al-Mukhtarová (Prague):

Adriane Steckhan: "Lost" (2022) and "Sediment 01 + 02" (2022), both photography, acrylic polymer, acrylic glass.

Karíma Al-Mukhtarová: from the series "Connection Almost Found" (2022), wood, glass, cotton

Transparency is an important source material for Adriane Steckhan and Karíma Al-Mukhtarová. While the Hamburg artist works with an acrylic polymer mixture to transform her photographs into flexible skins, the Prague artist uses glass into which a multitude of holes are drilled individually according to a template, creating an embroidery on glass. "Lost" is based on a photograph by Adriane Steckhan that she took in the fog in Hamburg at the harbor. The fog is so strong that the light shadows only become clear when viewed for a longer time. The motif shows a pier with railings and a person on it. Karíma Al-Mukhtarová responds with a continuation of her series "Connection Almost Found" (2022). The five wooden stands are reminiscent of trees, on whose "branches" glass plates are placed like foliage. These glass images show windows in black threads and shadows of trees with red threads. Both Karíma Al-Mukhtarová and Adriane Steckhan thematize the tension between nature and buildings as quiet moments that can harbor loneliness or solitude. Here the trees and the windows as parts of buildings, there the water, the fog and the pier as part of the harbor.

Simone Karl (Hamburg) & Petra Janda (Prague):

Simone Karl: " Wachen" (2022), stabbing protection, wire, chains, screws, hooks

Petra Janda: "Safe Space" (2022), hay from permaculture, wire

Simone Karl and Petra Janda have already dealt intensively with the status of the female body in society. For the exhibition "beyond BEYOND" they are exploring safe spaces and the defense against violence. The Prague artist has built a large sculpture out of hay in the form of a schematic vulva as a symbol of unconditional love. Nature and symbols of human love combine in the fragrant work made of hay. The object looks like a cocoon, from which an arm made of hay - for Petra Janda oscillating between umbilical cord and creeper - snakes its way into the stairwell. The Hamburg-based artist Simone Karl has built a ceiling of metal rings to which she has attached tufts of metal threads in such a way that, from a distance, they appear like soft fur or organic. Up close, their hardness becomes more apparent, like spikes set up in defense. On the one hand, the cold, hard metal protects against injury; on the other hand, the chainmail triggers associations with battle and violence. In the Middle Ages warriors protected themselves with the help of chainmail, today butchers use equivalent gloves.

Petra Gell (Vienna) & U. S. Buchart (Dresden):

Petra Gell: "The private is still political" (2019), industrial materials

U. S. Buchart: "Baby Blue" (2018) and "Wiener(*IN) " (2019), both acrylic and water on unprimed canvas

The bright, friendly pastel tones connect the paintings of Susanne U. Buchart and the installations of Petra Gell even from a distance. Spatially, too, the two artists approach each other. Thematically, both the artist from Vienna and the artist from Dresden touch on questions about the socialization of women. The installation on display illustrates that ideal images and self-portrayal of women are closely intertwined with how they occupy space. In "Wiener(*IN), the young woman wears a chain of sausages - displaying food is allowed, but eating calories is not. And so the picture towers over a fitness course with a yoga mat and tennis balls. Petra Gell arranges the mostly monochrome objects like colored lines and surfaces in space - painting in 3D. Petra Gell and U. S. Buchart are the only duo who have known each other for years through SALOON Vienna, of which U. S. Buchart was also a member before she moved to Dresden and founded a new SALOON there. The duo stands for the long lasting exchange and the cultivation of contacts within a network.

"Vielen Dank an MeetFrida für die Kooperation, die dieser Ausstellung einen Ort gibt. Dank auch an die altonale, die 'beyond BEYOND' in der Kulturlandschaft Altonas verankert. Ein großer Dank geht auch an die Senatskanzlei der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg, die Stadt Dresden und den Deutsch-Tschechischen Zukunftsfonds für die Förderung der Ausstellung, die den Transport der Arbeiten und die Anreise der Künstlerinnen ermöglicht haben."

– Dr. Franziska Storch, Co-Gründerin & Co-Leiterin des SALOON Hamburg

Fotos: David Reineke