A peculiar example of research into the relationships between fabric and the body: Ulla von Brandenburg brings Solid Earth, Liquid Wind to BASE. In the artist’s work, the body is experienced as a space-creating, space-transforming material that induces “other” behavior and often, in her works, accommodates like a curtain film projections related to performances and staging directed by the artist herself. Film, theater, performance, literature as well as characters from history are elements of a complex discourse that the German artist has over the years skillfully translated into three-dimensional scenarios of color and form.
Ulla von Brandenburg is a German artist born in 1974 in Karlsruhe and living in Paris since 2005. After training as a stage designer in Karlsruhe and a brief stint in the theater world, she studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg. Her work is characterized by the use of a diversity of tools and media (installations, film, watercolors, murals, collage, performance…) that dialogue with each other and that she sets up in relation to different exhibition contexts. Perfectly mastering the codes of scenography, nourished by literature, art history and architecture, as well as psychoanalysis, spiritualism and magic, von Brandenburg draws as much from esoteric rituals and folk ceremonies as from the mechanisms and codes of theater to explore the construction of our social structures. Masks, costumes, sets and props from different folk traditions allow the artist to symbolically transgress norms and hierarchies, subtly mixing reality and appearance in theatrical presentations.
Her internationally recognized work has appeared in numerous solo exhibitions, most recently at VISUAL, Carlow (2024), Palacio de Velàzquez/Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2023), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2020-2021), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2018) or Perez Art Museum, Miami (2016). Her works can be found in prestigious collections such as Tate Modern in London, MAMCO in Geneva, Centre Pompidou in Paris, or Mudam in Luxembourg. Her work is represented by Art : Concept gallery in Paris, Pilar Corrias gallery in London, Produzentengalerie in Hamburg, and Meyer Riegger gallery in Karlsruhe and Berlin.
Ulla von Brandenburg, installation view “Under Water Ball”, 2024
photo: Ros Kavanagh / VISUAL, Carlow
Ulla von Brandenburg, installation view “Sweet Feast”, 2024
photo : Valerie Servant / Le Parvis, scene nationale Tarbes Pyrenees, Ibos