Exhibition
Sacrifice - What is worth more, art or life?

Opening May 30 | 5 - 7 pm
Exhibition May 31 - July 19 2024 | 10 am - 4 pm and by appointment

Sacrifice - what is worth more, art or life? We have recently been faced with this choice.
Agnus Dei, the sacrificial Lamb of God in the Madrid Prado, is, like all masterpieces of the Western art canon, at risk of damage from climate protests.
This act follows an initiation rite that is at the beginning of every new culture and always one need for sacrifice? Why is it precisely autonomous art in the struggle to “save” the earth? life juxtaposed? Does the question even raise the practice of artistic self-empowerment? the game as a way of knowing the world and an instance of enlightenment?

Under the pretense of a culture of sacrifice, Svenja Schüffler initiates an artistic practice of Concealment and revelation, behind which are works that evade controlled reception. She will masterfully appropriate prominent masterpieces such as Agnus Dei, including their historical framing, and use them as a sculptural element of a sacrifice in order to vaguely conceal secret works behind them.

Svenja Schüffler (*1972 Kassel)
Using metallic cutlery that appears to come from a surgical operation set, Svenja Schüffler scratches, scratches and embosses flawless network and line patterns into the paper. She reworks these subtly shaped surfaces with pastels, combined with old as well as modern techniques, with gilding, frottage or even airbrush and assemblage - all executed with the highest delicacy and precision. The results are drawings and paintings with a dizzying amount of detail and a lifelike, sculptural effect, illusionistic feasts for the eyes that make us doubt the security of our perception.
The phenomenon of “uncertain knowledge” concerns Svenja Schüffler not only as an artist, but also as a geoscientist. With her works created in complex series of works and In projects such as the “Institute for Uncertain Knowledge”, she explores uncertainties and walks in border areas: between science and art, between humans and animals. To this end, she develops artistic concepts and aesthetics in the medium of drawing and painting, as well as in cross-media concepts. She lives and works in Berlin.