Henrike Naumann, one of many artists chosen to characterize Germany at this yr’s Venice Biennale, has died.
The Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (the Institute for International Cultural Relations, Ifa), the organisation that oversees the German Pavilion, mentioned in an announcement that it “mourns the lack of Henrike Naumann, a rare artist and character, who handed away on 14 February after a brief, severe sickness”. A press release on the artist’s web site says that “Henrike handed away… surrounded by her household and pals in Berlin after a most cancers analysis that got here far too late”.
Ifa provides: “Naumann, along with Sung Tieu, is representing Germany at this yr’s 61st Venice Biennale (9 Could-22 November). The curator is Kathleen Reinhardt. This exhibition marks probably the most essential milestones in Naumann’s inventive profession. It was essential for her to conceptually full the work in order that it could possibly be realised in Venice based on her inventive imaginative and prescient.”
Naumann’s deliberate work for the Venice Biennale will probably be proven posthumously alongside Sung Tieu’s, Ifa has confirmed: “Exhibiting within the Pavilion was a long-held dream of [Naumann’s], and he or she was brimming with concepts for it. Over the previous months, she developed the work conceptually and finalised it in current weeks. We, the crew of the German Pavilion and Henrike’s studio crew, will work collectively to grasp her inventive imaginative and prescient for the pavilion.”
Born in 1984, Naumann’s inventive apply centred on German reunification in 1990, following the autumn of the Berlin Wall, and its penalties. “Her capability to reply to particular geopolitical dynamics with a powerful aesthetic visible language and to conceive of artwork as a bridge between cultures was evident again and again,” Ifa provides. Her apply later expanded to contemplate the affect of the Chilly Conflict globally.
In an interview with Bomb journal in 2023, Naumann outlined her apply and strategies, saying: “Whereas researching and studying texts on political matters, I am going to flea markets and property gross sales to seek out objects that transport the connections I set up and the insights I get whereas diving into each day information and deeper tutorial evaluation. So my inventive apply is about deciphering politics whereas designed objects.”
Bomb added that “Naumann is thought for creating installations from mass-produced furnishings and objects; their quirky kinds are meant to resound with political rumination.” Naumann typically sourced furnishings objects from Kleinanzeigen, the German equal of Craigslist.
Naumann studied costume and stage design at Dresden’s Academy of Positive Arts and scenography in Potsdam. Her first solo exhibition within the US was held in 2022 on the SculptureCenter in New York; she had additionally just lately taken up a professorship submit on the Hamburg College of Positive Arts.
