Shifts in Time brings together an international group of 16 artists whose varied approaches offer ways to rethink ideas of abstraction and figuration, as well as how these artists embed such subjects in their practice.

The exhibition aims to portray the diversity of artistic approaches from established artists in dialogue with emerging voices of the international contemporary art scene. The presented artists span multiple generations and geographic locations and hail from different historical moments, offering distinct individual perspectives on the idea of abstraction and figuration in their practices and backgrounds. Together, the artists’ work provides a thought-provoking dialogue to explore the notion of different stylistic phenomena in the recent past.

The exhibition will be divided into separate sections with the connection between the artists expressed through references in their aesthetics. One such arrangement, for example, pronounces the formal relation between minimal sculpture and performance from the 60s (Posenenske) with the reduced and abstracted aesthetic of contemporary performative painting (Kukama).

Another focus of the exhibition elaborates on the concept of figurative depictions and their expressive potential and theoretical foundations by relating Wei Wei’s emotionally-charged dreamy figurative pieces, inspired by illuminated manuscripts and poetry, with political painting practices referring to issues such as isolation, violence and the vulnerability of the body (Cahn). These positions are being supported by the critical exploration of individual socialization into behavioral patterns and societal norms adjusting to stability, conformity and relentless human productivity (Perry).

In conjunction with this, the subject of abstraction, while being present in the work of several artists in the exhibition, is being vividly displayed by connecting a technical approach of highly idiosyncratic graphic systems for the visualization of experimental arrangements, experiences and sensory impressions (Voigt), with the deconstruction of the body itself (Douglas/Lassnig), and the involvement of successive layers, rapid spattering and frequent erasures creating a wide variety of sinister comic images (Pensato).

Shifts in Time will present works by Cris Brodahl, Miriam Cahn, Eliza Douglas, Sylvie Fleury, Rachel Howard, Donna Kukama, Alina Kunitsyna, Maria Lassnig, Angelika Loderer, Joyce Pensato, Hannah Perry, Charlotte Posenenske, Mandy El Sayegh, Janina Tschape, Jorinde Voigt and Faye Wei Wei.