Published 13 DEC 2024

29 NOV until 15 FEB 2025

dwell in me offers an intimate exploration of connection and resonance, weaving together works by artists from the gallery’s program, Taína Cruz, Brook Hsu and Slavs and Tatars, as well as new artistic positions and contributions by Thorben Gröbel, Rim Park, and Klaudia Schifferle.

The work series by SLAVS AND TATARS, titled Both Sides of the Tongue (2017), merges Roland Barthes’ exploration of binaries in his reconstruction of Balzac’s Sarrasine with the artists’ ongoing investigation into the politics of language. The four book covers juxtapose Barthes’ reading of the letters S and Z as he/she, revealed/concealed, and homosexual/heterosexual distinctions with the Arabic letters ‘ض) ‘ṣād) ‘ظ) ‘Ẓā). These letters, unique to Arabic, approximate a deep, guttural S and Z, and by doing so, the nuances of articulation and identity in language. The colorful, hand-painted overlay of shapes on the book cover further visualizes the sensual and political intersections at the heart of the artists’ inquiry, creating a dialogue between text, language, and cultural perception.

GALLI’s drawings (both 1990) transform impressions of everyday life and mythology into twisted scenes that capture the tension between the mundane and the enigmatic. Her works narrate struggles with daily banalities, moments of mystical intensity, and themes of sexuality, longing, frustration, and resilience. They convey the humor found in entanglements, the wit of distorted wordplay, and the delight in the chaos of failure. Fragmented objects, human limbs, and amorphous forms intertwine in her compositions, blending playfulness with a vulnerable and visceral quality. Galli’s works on paper are autonomous, not studies for paintings. Her drawings are often graphic though sometimes convey a very painterly quality through their linework, characterized by bold, incisive strokes that leave a powerful imprint on the surface.

RIM PARK’s Raga (2024) series combines etching, colored pencil, and ink on printmaking paper, layered on birch wood. Park’s work captures the intricate lines and natural textures of tree bark and roots, pictured on a microscopic level, reflecting her process of integrating organic forms and environmental elements. The composition invites close inspection, merging controlled etching with the irregular grain of the birch, bridging natural decay and formal structure. Park combines modern technologies of microscopy with ancient techniques of korean pigment making, to produce anachronistic artworks set staunchly in both contemporaneity and tradition. Park’s work evokes the quiet resilience and ambiguous presence that characterize her explorations of untouched landscapes.

KLAUDIA SCHIFFERLE’s watercolors (2004) capture raw emotion through a delicate use of color and line. The fluidity of watercolor as a medium becomes a vessel for expressive style, allowing colors to bleed, merge and flow in ways that mimic the unpredictability of thought and feeling. Each work seemingly makes sense of an emotional landscape where the human figure blurs and merges, capturing an essence of a feeling itself.

The titles of THORBEN GRÖBEL’s works in Post Performance Pieces (2023-2024) directly reference specific Porsche models from the secondary market, where the salvaged parts were sourced from. The materiality of the crashes themselves—imperfections such as scuffs and tears in the leather—becomes an integral part of the works. To transform these existing elements into independent objects, they are thoroughly cleaned and stripped of any attached equipment, such as seat belt holders, plastic covers, or levers. Reduced to their core and entirely divested of their original functionality, the parts take on a fragile state, marked by openings and holes. These ‘wounds’ serve as the foundation for newly designed structures that both support and reinterpret the salvaged components, allowing them to evolve into
something entirely new.

Portrait of the Goblin Girl Next Door #2 (2022) and Harlem Night (2023) by TAÍNA CRUZ, are characteristic of the artist’s basis in portraiture. As with much of Cruz’s practice, both works depict Black women through avatars that play with fantasy and the paranormal, balancing sincerity with playfulness and wit. Portrait of the Goblin Girl Next Door #2 features one of the artist’s recurring characters, whose elongated ears, piercing eyes, and textured skin distinguish her as an otherworldly being. A peace emblem prominently displayed on her chest references harmony and co-existence. Harlem Night adopts the stylized visual language of 1940s cartoons, using graphic, bold lines and monochromatism to create an alternative cityscape of Harlem. The drawing intermingles a variety of characters from glamorous to eerie, set against the backdrop of a luminous skyline and glowing moon. By blending reality with fantasy, Cruz reveals the facetted spirit of Harlem’s nightlife. Through these two works, Cruz continues her exploration of folklore, identity, and flexibility of style, with each piece offering a distinct approach to storytelling.

BROOK HSU’s two recent works on paper (2024) are studies for her large-scale painting the Barcelona Pavilion, that references the building designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the 1929 International Exposition. Though dismantled shortly after the exposition, it was later reconstructed in the 1980s. Hsu’s drawings mediate the paradoxical modus of the pavilion, which, unlike the eternal nature of architecture, exists to be destroyed and rebuilt. Hsu depicts a pregnant woman in place of the Georg Kolbe sculpture which stands in the pavilion, intermingling themes of life, death and rebirth between the organic and inorganic; anatomy and architecture. The skeletal figure, both a memento mori and common motif in Hsu’s works, acts as a macabre counterpart to the female figure