ART CITIES:Istanbul-Anke Eilergerhard

For over 30 years, the motif of the “Layer Cake” has played a prominent role in Anke Eilergerhard’s silicone sculptures. Since 2004, she has been focusing on the sculptural form of the swirl of whipped cream, staged by means of her unconventional technique. When it comes to correcting flaws in outward appearances, silicone is equally popular among do-it-yourselfers and plastic surgeons: In this context, it is the perfect rtistic medium for the artist, on account of its material characteristics and also its semantics.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Anna Laudel Gallery Archive

Anke Eilergerhard’s solo exhibition “Resilience”, hosts a series of fascinating sculptures produced by the artist using special silicone material and porcelain. Anke Eilergerhard‘s sculptures, produced by a special silicone material called “pigmented polyorganosiloxan“, evoke abundance and plentifulness, at the same time presenting the objects we know best in a way that has never been seen before. The artist, who shapes the silicone layers like a dough, stacks kitchen objects in a mysterious symmetry, almost defying gravity, out of their usual norms. Eilergerhard’s works, carefully produced with this technique, take their place in the feminist discourse both in terms of aesthetics by rejecting traditional kitchen objects identified with women all over the world. In Anke Eilergerhard’s work, the conventional contrasts between sculpture and color, form vital metamorphoses from one to the other, merging into dynamic clouds of color. The color hues of the three “ANNAS” that dance together to form the “TIPPING POINT” group are reminiscent of an evening flight through the clouds, and stage volatility, emergence, and dissolution as if in a paradox. With an enthusiasm that ignores boundaries, with ingenuity, wit, and conceptualism, Eilergerhard’s figures and objects explore surface and space, rule and chance, and the interplay of opulence and severity. In her sculptural work, there are always moments of the absurd, encounters between the unexpected, the trivial, and the precious. There are always irrationalities in the shifts and in the transplants of the materials; cunning and subversive, things settle between chaos and order, between geometry and the organic, between shimmering shine, colored patterns, or opaque monochrome. At the same time, the seriality of the sculptures, the repetitive process of the silicone caps placed next to and on top of each other and the use of porcelain, repeatedly generates the question of difference and repetition, of their shift, displacement, and disguise, which then subvert the order of representation and common sense.

Info: Anna Laudel Gallery, Bankalar Caddesi 10 Karaköy, Beyoğlu, Istanbul, Duration: 24/9-27/12/20, Tue-Sat 12:00-19:00, Sun 12:00-18:00, https://annalaudel.gallery