Call me inherently fragile
Cracow, 2.05.2025 - 15.06. 2025
Artists:
Beate Gatschelhofer
Beate Gatschelhofer
Does
reflection condition my existence
or does truthfulness lie
in the generality of the core symptomatology
to think a body?
What if the dream
tears me away from my camouflage
and the colors creep in
through a rapid flicker?
Beate Gatschelhofer, Feinripp Fantasy, 2025
It is believed that octopuses dream similarly to humans - a quiet stage of sleep is followed by an active stage, similar to the human REM phase. The eyeballs begin to move, involuntary tics appear, but, most spectacularly, their color also changes. The camouflage previously adopted loses its color, revealing the animal in all its delicacy.
Beate Gatschelhofer's ceramic works are covered with a delicate pattern, emerging from the grinding of layers of color, revealing tones hidden deeper. These objects, balancing between organicity and synthesis, seem to exist in two ways - sometimes they blend into the background, as if trying to hide their materiality, sometimes they become extremely active, annexing the space, engaging us and demanding our attention. Beate's work is immanently entangled in dialectical tensions: what is seemingly soft and pulsating with life is, after all, a rough, stagnant surface. Ultimately, ceramics is plastic clay that, having passed the test of fire, turns into a hard shell. What appears to be silent performs a quiet conversation - the objects remain in constant dialogue, letting meanings and hidden symbols flow through them.
Beate focuses on cataloging emotions - feelings that are rooted deep in the body or that reveal themselves on the surface of the skin. This is an intimate story about the fluidity of identity and signs that remain in a state of constant flux. Nothing here is definite or closed - the works seem to change shapes and forms, merging with space, light as clouds, while protecting their delicate interior. They establish a fluid boundary between the explicit and the implicit. Beate's sculptures are like ethereal bodies, trembling with emotion and tension, forming together a vibrating organism. Their delicacy, however, does not condemn them to escape reality - on the contrary: their forms seductively expose themselves before our gaze.
The signs of sculptural forms intermingle with the language of poetry in Gatschelhofer's work. The author leads us through parallel narratives of visuality and text - both spheres allow meaning and materiality to flow. Words have their own weight, and sculptures are saturated with meanings - in this way they guide us between the visible and the invisible, the legible and the illegible.
All works presented in the exhibition were created during the residency in Kraków in March and April 2025.
The exhibition is the final of an artist residency carried out in cooperation with the House of Utopia - International Center for Empathy in Krakow and Kultur Land Steiermark in Graz. It was realized thanks to the financial support of the Department of Culture of the City of Krakow
or does truthfulness lie
in the generality of the core symptomatology
to think a body?
What if the dream
tears me away from my camouflage
and the colors creep in
through a rapid flicker?
Beate Gatschelhofer, Feinripp Fantasy, 2025
It is believed that octopuses dream similarly to humans - a quiet stage of sleep is followed by an active stage, similar to the human REM phase. The eyeballs begin to move, involuntary tics appear, but, most spectacularly, their color also changes. The camouflage previously adopted loses its color, revealing the animal in all its delicacy.
Beate Gatschelhofer's ceramic works are covered with a delicate pattern, emerging from the grinding of layers of color, revealing tones hidden deeper. These objects, balancing between organicity and synthesis, seem to exist in two ways - sometimes they blend into the background, as if trying to hide their materiality, sometimes they become extremely active, annexing the space, engaging us and demanding our attention. Beate's work is immanently entangled in dialectical tensions: what is seemingly soft and pulsating with life is, after all, a rough, stagnant surface. Ultimately, ceramics is plastic clay that, having passed the test of fire, turns into a hard shell. What appears to be silent performs a quiet conversation - the objects remain in constant dialogue, letting meanings and hidden symbols flow through them.
Beate focuses on cataloging emotions - feelings that are rooted deep in the body or that reveal themselves on the surface of the skin. This is an intimate story about the fluidity of identity and signs that remain in a state of constant flux. Nothing here is definite or closed - the works seem to change shapes and forms, merging with space, light as clouds, while protecting their delicate interior. They establish a fluid boundary between the explicit and the implicit. Beate's sculptures are like ethereal bodies, trembling with emotion and tension, forming together a vibrating organism. Their delicacy, however, does not condemn them to escape reality - on the contrary: their forms seductively expose themselves before our gaze.
The signs of sculptural forms intermingle with the language of poetry in Gatschelhofer's work. The author leads us through parallel narratives of visuality and text - both spheres allow meaning and materiality to flow. Words have their own weight, and sculptures are saturated with meanings - in this way they guide us between the visible and the invisible, the legible and the illegible.
All works presented in the exhibition were created during the residency in Kraków in March and April 2025.
The exhibition is the final of an artist residency carried out in cooperation with the House of Utopia - International Center for Empathy in Krakow and Kultur Land Steiermark in Graz. It was realized thanks to the financial support of the Department of Culture of the City of Krakow
