Anna Fasshauer
Sculpture First
New York | Tribeca
October 25 – December 18
Nino Mier Gallery is delighted to present Sculpture First, a solo exhibition of new works by Berlin-based artist Anna Fasshauer. With wit and whimsy, Fasshauer’s vibrant aluminum sculptures blend clever abstraction with a striking juxtaposition of rigidity and delicacy. The exhibition is Fasshauer’s second solo exhibition with the gallery and first in New York. Sculpture First will be on view from October 25 through December 18 at our Tribeca location.
Balancing oppositions, Sculpture First invites viewers to a captivating meditation on experience and reality, where industrial-grade aluminum sheets are strenuously transformed into bright, playful structures. Exuding a sense of effortless nonchalance, Fasshauer’s sculptures are the result of an intense physical process of hammering, welding, and folding. Despite its delicate appearance, each piece carries the weight of its creation - the visible folds, dents, and seams tracing the artist’s rigorous physicality. Fasshauer works the metal into shapes with an improvisational spontaneity directed by a combination of visual memory and the nature of her chosen medium. The resulting structure dances the line between familiar and foreign, gently guiding the viewer’s subjective experience as loosely recognizable shapes and colours evade distinct categorization.
In Frites, a vertical bundle of bright yellow metal posts are center-bound by a red tether, immediately recalling the shape and colours of french fries. The posts appear to fall into one another with unexpected warmth and lightness, their encompassing tether wrapped around them with the apparent ease of a ribbon. The sculpture’s glossy coat of powder pigment not only contributes to its charming character but also functions to blur and smooth the marks of brutality left on the metal’s surface. Prolonged looking eventuates the acknowledgement of Fasshauer’s chosen material and process, bringing into focus the sculpture’s sharp corners and cool, smooth surface dimpled and bent by the artist’s hand. The title also offers viewers a visual benchmark from where to begin unraveling the work’s meaning as is customary to Fasshauer’s practice. At the same time, Frites is imbued with an enchanting sense of humanity that impedes categorization, as if the entire structure is engaged in a passionate embrace or spirited dance. Leveraging our collective visual memory and tendency to anthropomorphize, Fasshauer animates the stiff industrial aluminum that makes up Frites with humour and emotion, standing in stark contrast to their cold, hard material nature and brutal process of construction. Frites invites viewers to question the nature of categorization beyond itself by acknowledging the subjectivity of perception and oppositional harmony.
For her wall-mounted works, Fasshauer skips the powder pigment and leaves the aluminum surface raw. In Stellar 1, a rectangular metallic sheet hangs vertically on the wall, its surface marred with a collection of dents and creases, recalling the aftermath of an auto collision. Despite being physically battered, the sculpture exudes an aura of strength and dignity, like a suit of armour that has survived battle. The untreated metal retains every mark of Fasshauer’s making in sharp focus, boasting its unyielding resilience that is enhanced by its industrial quality. Standing as a neutral, serious backdrop to the colourful floor sculptures populating the gallery, the wall works serve as a constant reminder of the hidden intensity behind their collective creation. Beaten and bruised, one almost feels empathy for the object as impressions of industrial precision give way to a relatable and personal sentimentality. Through its raw materiality, Stellar 1 challenges viewer perceptions of strength, suggesting it can only truly be found among the scars of experience. While created specifically for Nino Mier Gallery’s Tribeca space, wall-works and floor sculptures alike exist in effortless unity, a harmonious landscape of shape and colour that looks as if it could have been arranged by a serendipitous gust of wind. Contradictions abound, Sculpture First strikes a weighty balance between ease and effort, humour and gravity, strength, and delicacy.
Anna Fasshauer (b. 1975, Cologne, DE; lives and works in Berlin, DE) graduated with an MFA from Chelsea School of Art and Design, London in 2001. She has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions at institutions worldwide, including Kunstverein Offenburg; Jardin des Tuileries, Paris; Orient-Institut Beirut, Lebanon; Kunstverein Arnsberg; London Barbican Center; Kunsthalle Baden and Goethe-Institut Beirut, Lebanon.