Antonia Hirsch – Phenomenal Fracture

Overview

In a probing engagement with the screen, an omnipresent object in contemporary life, Antonia Hirsch charts the gulf between the digital and the analog, the two spheres of which our perceived reality is composed. In provocative installations and objects, the artist conceives the distinctions between screen, mirror, and blade as less than sharply defined. Her works show rigidly geometric shapes made of hard and shimmering glass and steel; they encounter eerily somatic and perishable-looking cardboard or soft foamed-plastic components that recall the bodies they perhaps once served. Reflective surfaces mirror our gaze, but the less classy materials, too, await recognition by the beholder’s body. The book accompanies Hirsch’s solo exhibition “Phenomenal Fracture” at Kunsthalle Lingen; photographs and writings convey extensive and sustained impressions that run the gamut from the uncanny to the darkly humorous.

Author Biography

Meike Behm is an art historian. She was a research assistant and curator of the solo exhibition “Habitat” by Canadian artist Luis Jacob at the Kunstverein in Hamburg, curator of the group exhibition “Frankfurter Kreuz. Transformations of the Everyday in Contemporary Art” at the Schirn Kunsthalle and coordinator of the publications for Manifesta 4 - both in Frankfurt am Main.