Iris Schieferstein


Heute mache ich mir kein Abendbrot, Heute mache ich mir Gedanken / Today I Will Make No Dinner,
Today I Will Think (detail), 2004 (preserved animal parts, formaldehyde, glass)

As a demiurge, Schieferstein uses parts of dead animals (abiding by the law!), which normally are not included in tasteful and tempting buffet meals. Her works problematise the morals of meat-eating human beings, open up pro et contra polemics about the donation of (human) organs, and also touch upon ethical and aesthetic issues regarding hunting trophies.
In her sculptural installation entitled Heute mache ich mir kein Abendbrot, heute mache ich mir Gedanken (Today I Will Make No Dinner, Today I Will Think), thread as a material is used as an appliqué. The words sewn by the silver thread convey a message reminding of an altarpiece. But this is only partly true. Schieferstein's creative work to date, famous for its Hirst-like aesthetic of the hideous and horrible, which she has followed ever since the early 1990s, has often contained letters as personified entities inscribing various messages. In the present work, this mode of creation is only evident in the central part of the installation showing the word Abendbrot composed of various parts of dead animals. Besides this central part of the installation there are two more sculptures, which supplement the essence of the work. The artist's use of thread as a supplemental material for her creation is not irrelevant but, rather, highly meaningful, for it has characterised women's creativity already for centuries. Within the plethora of messages mediated by this artwork, among the basic ones is precisely the message of woman's identity. A woman courageously fulfils a number of social roles, so the question is, when could she find time for herself and her own introspection? It might be that evenings are the periods of the day when thinking may be of utmost ease, when evaluation of oneself and one's own position can be most successful and also pleasant. In the current quickly spinning and changing world filled with antagonisms, the redefinition of one's own self, or re-identification, is more than urgent. One of the basic messages of the work Heute mache ich mir kein Abendbrot, heute mache ich mir Gedanken is that moments of introspection are not self-evident.

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Born in 1966 in Lich (Germany). Between 1989 and 1996 she studied at the Kunsthochschule in Kassel and at the sculpture department of the Kunsthochschule Weissensee in Berlin.

Samostojne razstave ( izbor) / Solo exhibitions (selection):

2005 She imagined, GALERIE RAFAEL VOSTELL, Berlin
Underfucked and Oversexed, Galerie Bis Heute, Bern
2003 LIKE HUMAN BEINGS, Die neue Aktionsgalerie (DNA), Berlin
2001 live can be so nice, Die neue Aktionsgalerie (DNA), Berlin

Skupinske razstave (izbor) / Group exhibitions (selection):

2007 Die Macht des Dinglichen - Skulptur heute!, Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin
2006 Tier ARTen: Das Tier im Fokus der Kunst, Stadtmuseum Oldenburg, Oldenburg,
About Woman, Galeria Metropolitana, Barcelona
Die obere Hälfte - Die Büste von Rodin bis Weng Du, Museum Liner Appenzell, Appenzell
2005 Die obere Hälfte - Die Büste von Rodin bis Funakoshi, Kunsthalle, Emden
219 km Berlin – Rostock, Kunsthalle, Rostock
2002/03 MENSCH UND TIER, Deutsche Hygienemuseum, Dresden
2002 Wächserne Identitäten, Georg-Kolbe Museum, Berlin
5. Festival Neuer Kunst INSIDEOUT, Berlin
2000 Ab die Post, Postfuhramt, Berlin Mitte; Festival of Vision, Hongkong

www.iris-schieferstein.de