Galerie Jan Wentrup is pleased to open its new space in Berlin-Kreuzberg with a solo show by Thomas Kiesewetter, as part of the Berlin Gallery Weekend.
Thomas Kiesewetter’s sculptures are abstract compositions of sheet metal, steel, bronze, or aluminium. They have an angular quality that is related to the formal vocabulary of modernism, but also reminiscent of utopian architectural models. Elements from the constructivist vocabulary are largely deconstructed by Kiesewetter through riveting, bending, and bolting.
Clearly marked by the process of their creation, his sheet metal assemblages are displayed on homemade pedestals, exuding the lightness and dynamism of sketches, as if they were floating.
The casts of the large bronzes are a different matter. While indeed related to the sheet metal sculptures, through their sheer volume and weight tend more towards a manifestation of a claim or a statement.
In spite of their material, Kiesewetter’s works are never representations or glorifications of a cool, industrial production. Untitled and without any recognisable references to reality, they elude any clear, concrete interpretation, leaving it to the beholder to come up with an interpretation of his or her own.
Thomas Kiesewetter, born in 1963, lives and works in Berlin. His works have been shown internationally in numerous exhibitions, such as at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Los Angeles, Galerie Neu in Berlin, Galerie Bob van Orsouw in Zürich, Galerie Tilton in New York, and Galerie Roberts & Tilton in Los Angeles.
After having been established in a coach house from the mid-nineteenth century in Berlin-Mitte in 2004, the gallery has now moved to an industrial building from the 1950s on Tempelhofer Ufer in Berlin-Kreuzberg. After the war, this building originally served as a production site for ladies’ skirts, part of the booming Berlin fashion industry. It was converted by the architects Ansgar Schmidt and Henning Ziepke of the architectural firm S1.
