FLⒶT$ is pleased to present DRY RAIN; an exhibition including sculptural works by Esther Babulik, Rebekka Benzenberg, Michaela Schweighofer and Sebastian Thewes.
DRY RAIN
Artists: Esther Babulik, Rebekka Benzenberg, Michaela Schweighofer, Sebastian Thewes
Curated by Alfons Knogl & Lukas Schmenger
June 3 - July 30,.2023
FLⒶT$, Brussels
BEFORE WE HIT THE GROUND
THINGS
– COVERING IN SHAME
WORLDS WILL BE STITCHED TOGETHER
AND WE FURIOUSLY
DREAM ABOUT LOVE
Esther Babulik graduated from Royal Academy of fine arts Brussels.
She tries to develop a «body building process», this year she’s focusing on Parthenogenesis a natural form of asexual reproduction real for certain animal and plant species, but still fantasised for humans, an intermediary between nature and culture, biology and technology, fantasy and reality.
Her recents exhibitions include Stresstest, curated by New scenario, and soon she will exhibit with Hyun Woo Lee at Afterhours Zone in Paris. She did residencies like the Wonder in Paris and Petrohradská kolektiv in Prague.
Rebekka Benzenberg: “What we consider humane is a normative regulation of social behavior that is not constant. The restrictions and exclusions that these regulations entail are as variable as the idea on which they are based. Conventions and their symbols and codes are dynamic. I work with materials that stands for social/societal phenomena and can be read as thair codes.
I build mainly installative, with everyday materials. These materials offer a high range of association, which despite the new assignment creates access through recognition.
A central theme in my work is power, its structures or misuse. I work on themes that interest me on the basis of related materials and try to question them with the help of deconstruction. I deal with individual materials sometimes for years until I have dissected them for myself both physically and in terms of content. Fur, pantyhose, mattresses and co. are materials that appear again and again. In my work I often play with the status-power object fur, which stands for something luxurious, but also, in a contemporary way, for a clichéd femininity. In the history of fur, the gender that wears it has constantly changed, but the image is still associated with prestige and power or status. But the object of fur and its status are in flux, as are the values it represents. Because of animal rights activists and the like, the view of fur is also changing to something cruel and deadly, opposed to life.”
Rebekka Benzenberg was born 1990 in Duisburg. She lives and works in Berlin
She studied Fine at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf 2013-2020 with Rita McBride, Franka Hörnschemeyer and Ellen Gallagher and was appointed Meisterschülerin of Franka Hörnschemeyer in 2020.
Michaela Schweighofer (1983) is a visual artist from Austria, based in Brussels and Vienna. She has an inquisitive approach to sculpture that often leads to immersing herself in handicrafts and new techniques. Michaela is interested in sociopolitical and feminist questions, which she explores within her practice and in various collaborative formations. Her work takes shape in texts, lectures, sculptures, and sculptural installations. She studied English, Psychology and Philosophy at the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz and the Université VII in Paris, as well as Video and Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and the University of Fine Arts (HFBK) in Hamburg.
Sebastian Thewes main felds of artistic practice are lying in areas like experimental soundart, video, experimental animation, photography, 3D, netart and installation. He is exploring the aesthetics and aspects of modern culture, but also tracing ancient remains and follows their way through the now into the future. He is tracking down archaic prototypes and symbols from the past which survived in the tech and science based culture and revive under the surface of daily live to show up in sometimes unusual times and hidden or unfamiliar ways. He uses those aspects and patterns in a new contemporary context in combination with the research of modern aesthetics to trigger mechanisms of mysticism and animism in the modern sophisticated human.
He has exhibited works at galleries and institutions globally including Kunsthalle Baden Baden, Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Kunsthaus NRW Kornelimünster, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, CCA Center of Contemporary Art Tbilisi, Marrakech Biennale 6, Werkleitz Festival Halle, ZKM Karlsruhe, Sammlung Philara Düsseldorf, Art Cologne, Transmediale Berlin, Le Commun (BAC) Geneva, UNTITLED Art Fair Miami.
Sebastian Thewes, born 1980, lives and works in Cologne, Germany.
Photo: Jan Hoeft