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“It’s shit!” proudly declared German artist Stefanie Gutheil to her gallerist Mike Weiss upon his recent visit to her Berlin studio. Weiss, who was meeting with the artist to view the progress on the new works to be featured in her second solo exhibition at Mike Weiss Gallery, stepped into Gutheil’s studio-turned-alternate-universe now populated by fiendish monsters straight out of a colorful comic book version of Dante’s inferno. Gargoyle-like creatures made of wood masks, plastic and real animal parts sat atop glossy mounds of their own fecal matter in delicate bird cages suspended from the ceiling. |
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“Of her Sisyphean, never-ending renderings of space she says, “The architecture is impossible. The things you keep down in the cellar; the side of you that you don’t want anyone to know about. This is my shit, but everyone has it.”
Stefanie Gutheil
Mike Weiss Gallery
“It’s shit!” proudly declared German artist Stefanie Gutheil to her gallerist Mike Weiss upon his recent visit to her Berlin studio.
Weiss, who was meeting with the artist to view the progress on the new works to be featured in her second solo exhibition at Mike Weiss Gallery, stepped into Gutheil’s studio-turned-alternate-universe now populated by fiendish monsters straight out of a colorful comic book version of Dante’s inferno. Gargoyle-like creatures made of wood masks, plastic and real animal parts sat atop glossy mounds of their own fecal matter in delicate bird cages suspended from the ceiling. Piles of shit clung to the wall thanks to their flamboyantly ornate golden frames, while mutant figures vomited rainbows or strands of plastic pearls. Although, initially repulsive, Gutheil’s grotesque clan is—upon further inspection—endearing in its wholesale juvenile denial of realism and exuberant indulgence in the vile.
While Gutheil is primarily known as a painter, this new body of work erupts forth from her Bosch-hued surfaces, and her fantastical imagery is sourced from twisted characterizations of those in her daily life — the artists, musicians, dancers, writers and club kid revelers of Berlin. The result is 3D canvases as well as—for the first time—full-fledged sculptural works.
“I’m trying to work with colors that I don’t like… pink, violet, yellow,” said Gutheil, who seeks to excavate the monster within us all. Of her Sisyphean, never-ending renderings of space she says, “The architecture is impossible. The things you keep down in the cellar; the side of you that you don’t want anyone to know about. This is my shit, but everyone has it.” This exhibit will be on view from September 8 – October 8, 2011.
