In the studio with ...
Josephine Baker
The dioramic sculptures of London-based artist Josephine Baker question what part the depiction of landscape and natural phenomena has to play in human world-building and world-destroying. They will be presented by ChertLüdde on the occassion of Gallery Weekend Berlin 2020.
‘Islands’ (detail), 2019, preformed pond, cement, tiles, anticlimb spikes plywood, pine, pigments
Courtesy the Artist and BUNGALOW, Berlin
Together with readily-available industrial and household materials synonymous with designed urban terrains, large-scale diagrammatic chalk drawings, and the disorienting structures of language in her poems, Baker creates environments which clutch the incoherence of the world they have been suscepted to and are inextricably a part of. Here, metaphor and symbolism are locked into conversation with a kind of logic or pragmatism, as if conflicting worldviews were being asked to carefully negotiate their differences. Her makeshift architectures attempt to house the geopolitical contradictions embedded in the very materials that comprise them, where walls and frontiers hold both the possibility of belonging, but also separation; safety, but also coercive control.
In her interview in April this year with SOS: Sculptors on Sculpture, Baker describes the studio as a microclimatic habitat, and discusses the interpretation of nature into functional and consumable realities, the stories materials tell about the processes they undergo, and her considerations of catastrophism during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Installation view of ‘Islands’, 2019, Kupfer Project Space, London.
Courtesy the Artist and BUNGALOW, Berlin
‘Desert Shore (2)’, 2019
Chalk on tiles, plywood, pigmented mortar, barbed wire, corrugated metal, scaffolding, MDF, painted pine, tile dust, pink masking tape
272 x 196 x 94cm
Courtesy the Artist and BUNGALOW, Berlin
Installation view of ‘Islands’, 2019, Kupfer Project Space, London.
Courtesy the Artist and BUNGALOW, Berlin
‘Night music’, 2018 (detail)
British School at Rome. Chalk on terracotta tiles, glazed ceramic tiles, painted plywood, pine, painted branches and leaves
Courtesy the Artist and BUNGALOW, Berlin
‘Landslide’, 2019
Chalk on terracotta tiles, plywood, artificial grass, mortar, timber, painted MDF
244 x 30 x 234cm
Courtesy the Artist and BUNGALOW, Berlin
‘Landslide’, 2019 (detail)
Chalk on terracotta tiles, plywood, artificial grass, mortar, timber, painted MDF
244 x 30 x 234cm
Courtesy the Artist and BUNGALOW, Berlin
‘Waterfall’, 2020
Bitumen roofing, tiles, chalk
approx. 120 x 100 x 5 cm
Courtesy the Artist and BUNGALOW, Berlin
‘Waterfall’, 2020 (detail)
Bitumen roofing, tiles, chalk
approx. 120 x 100 x 5 cm
Courtesy the Artist and BUNGALOW, Berlin