Isabell Schulte und Jana Schulz
16.05. – 28.06.2020

Lisa Thiele, curator at the Neuer Kunstverein Wuppertal

The two artists Isabell Schulte (1987) and Jana Schulz (1984) come together in a presentation at the Kunsthalle Bremerhaven. Both from Berlin, a coincidental rather than deliberate fact. The positions stand side by side, working in completely different media. This state of affairs, which is not initially intended to create a connection, offers the subtle possibility of revolving around themes such as movement, body, time, order, repetition, subjectivity and language.

Isabell Schulte’s (*1987) works on display are part of a series created over two years. The artist produced large-format drawings that were created one after the other over a period of several months. Her materials are inconspicuous, about six and a half square meters of paper and a pencil for each drawing. Part I-V shows small-scale elements that seem to take over the paper in a rampant manner. They follow a system of signs, which are precisely placed and created completely subjectively in the process of drawing. And thus, like cartographic works or notations, they are an attempt at order or the transfer of complex circumstances into another form, through which they are made comprehensible. Isabell Schulte does not organize what several people can perceive in the same way. The drawings reveal a network of thought, thoughts that run over and next to each other, or repeat themselves.

Jana Schulz’s (*1984) video works suddenly draw us into a specific situation: in the work “being on concrete” it is New York b-boying dancers, at night, on the street, their temporary performance and rehearsal space. The artist enters closed structures with her camera. As an explicitly female camera operator, she usually enters male-dominated social groups that are more or less held together by something in common. The external commonality of these groups themselves - a meeting place, sport, a hobby - becomes secondary. “being on concrete” is close, subjective and focused. The work creates a distanceless view of the physicality of the individual, of the individual in a structure and the structure itself. The physical presence of the work in the room intensifies the focus, revealing ordinary facial expressions and gestures as an almost mystical interaction.

Curated by Lisa Thiele.