Wiebke Bartsch


Das Auto braust, das Auto saust /A Car Roars, A Car Rushes, 2001

As a textile artist, Wiebke Bartsch uses materials known from households and sewing workshops, particularly fabrics with various patterns and all kinds of threads. In the exhibited works, thread has been used as a means of completing the artwork. Occasionally Bartsch also includes ready-made objects in her installations, but transforms and remakes them in the creative process to invest them with new meanings. Her artistic positions are marked with a high level of humour. The gently pink-coloured chandelier with sewed-on appliqués has been obviously changed into a personified phallus, which hangs from the ceiling and inconveniently touches the ground with its limbs. In the manner of a caricature, the sculpture reflects the entrapment of a man in the tender embrace of a woman. Another Bartsch work is an installation in public space. This work also includes a high level of humour, reflecting the reality of elderly people captured by their immobility into closed and frequently senile, confused and peculiarly bizarre worlds. In sum, the common denominator of Wiebke Bartsch's works is a reflection on contemporary society and its phenomena, which she treats in an extremely humorous, cheerful and amusing way.

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Born in 1968 in Braunschweig (Germany). She graduated in 2003 from Kunstakademie Münster in Germany under Timm Ulrichs. She won the following prizes: Tim and Struppi prize (1998), Joseph and Anna Fassbender prize (1999) and AEG Arts Prize Ecology (2002). In 2004 she held the Künstlerhaus Lukas scholarship in Ahrenshoop. Since 2004 she has taught at the textile department of the Institute of Art and Material Culture at the Dortmund University.

Solo exhibitions (selection):

2007 Vermöbelt, Galerie Egbert Baque Contemporary Art, Berlin
Bartsch bei Kitsch, Kitschbude, Bochum
I’m Going Back Home, Kunsthaus Norden, Norden in Ostfriesland
2005 Zuhause (At Home), KunstVerein, Ahlen –catalogue
Norden (North), Keimzelle Kunst, Ostbevern
2003 Verblüht in den Tag (Withered into the Day), Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden (Germany) – catalogue

Group exhibitions (selection):

2007 Ohne Titel, Gornoslaski Centrum Kultury, Kattowice
2006 Essen, uniart münster, Geologisch-Paläontologisches Museum, Münster
Wundertüte 06/06, GAM/Galerie Obrist Am Museum, Essen
2005 Blind Date, German-Chinese Exhibition Project, Münsterland Gallery, Emsdetten – catalogue
mit offenem Ende (Open-ended), Timm Ulrichs Course 1972-2005, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen and Kunstverein, Ingolstadt – catalogue
2004 Privat Grün (Private Green/Privately Green), an outdoor project, Cologne – catalogue
An der Nadel (On the Needle), Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden

http://www.fb16.uni-dortmund.de/textil/02_personal/bartsch.html
http://www.fb16.uni-dortmund.de/textil/02_personal/bilder_bartsch/fol-1.html