Artist: Anna Virnich
Exhibition title: Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip
Venue: DREI, Cologne, Germany
Date: November 18, 2018 – January 19, 2019
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and DREI, Cologne
We are ex cited to announce Anna Virnich’s third solo ex hibition with the gallery . ’Warm, Milky Acid, Silver Slip’ features two different bodies of work. Alongside large and medium scale tex tile collages is a group of clay sculptures, partly functioning as vessels for volatile and odor-forming materials, creating an immersive environment of unstable references and individual ex perience.
– german version below –
A smell is a slightly repelling reminder that we ex ist on Earth. A place where everything is made of the same stuff. You might not notice an atmosphere before it is disturbed and it makes itself felt, it vibrates and communicates, air moves, sends signals, matter changes, entries and ex its link up, metabolism happens, substances circulate. Smell marks a constant transition. It is a weird intimacy with all things when the environment manifests as interiority . A smell is the feel of breath, a quasi-linguistic touch of the world.
Yet it is not verbal. Neither science nor everyday language has sufficient or objective terms for smells. It is a form of communication but tricky to communicate. Smell plays a hedonistic rather than a discursive role. You can’t smell ironically, yet smell is deflecting and vicarious. It is signifying only in relation to something else. Our sense of smell is based solely on personal ex perience and manifests in mental images. Recalling a smell is recalling an image of that smell. Feelings and memories surround a smell rather than being identical to it, they are besides the smell, like forming a mood board. In this sense, an image is the quality of a smell while a smell is the quality of an object. It is the apparition of an object nex t to itself, an invisible becoming of an image.
A perfume is the coex istence of appeal qualities – an indivisible mix of the visual and the olfactory, commodity and esoterism, desire, corporality, style, ideas, ads, design, old dreams, future memories and soft facts. And just like a mood board, an image can be considered as a panoramic plane rather than a depth, a recorder of social resonance. And an ex hibition is a heap of appeal qualities at a given time.
In “Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip“ a group of tex tile collages appears nex t to various ceramic sculptures, serving partly as vessels for volatile and odor-forming materials, enwrapping the ex hibition in specific scents. The featured works create a reciprocal environment made of tex tile, physical, aerial and earthy qualities. From fabric to fabric, from image to object to space they weave an intrusive structure carrying a gentle unease. In this, the works are mutually formative counterparts with material and mental impressions ex ploring the interpenetration of images and social skin. (Baptist Ohrtmann)
Anna Virnich (*1984, German) gratuated in 2013 from HfBK Braunschweig, Germany. Recent solo exhibitions took part at Arratia Beer, Berlin; Galerie Nathalie Halgand, Vienna, Art-O-Rama, Marseille (all 2017); Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City (2016). The artist furthermore recently contributed to group exhibitions at Hunt Kastner, Prague (2018), Centre d’Art Contemporaine Chanot, Clamart, France; Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City (both 2017). April 2019 will see the artist’s solo exhibitions at Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City (April) and Schering Stiftung, Berlin (September). Anna Virnich lives and works in Berlin.
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip, 2018, exhibition view, DREI, Cologne
Anna Virnich, Parts Glazed #3, 2018, glazed ceramic, beeswax essential oils, oil, stainless steel wall fixing, 7 × 28 × 25 cm, 6 × 26 × 24,5 cm
Anna Virnich, Parts Glazed #2, 2018, glazed ceramic, natural resin, oil, stainless steel wall fixing, 7,5 × 23 × 22 cm
Anna Virnich, Parts Glazed #1, 2018, glazed ceramic, truffle, truffle oil, essential oils, oil, stainless steel wall fixing, 6 × 23,5 × 19 cm
Anna Virnich, Parts Glazed #3, 2018, glazed ceramic, beeswax essential oils, oil, stainless steel wall fixing, 7 × 28 × 25 cm, 6 × 26 × 24,5 cm
Anna Virnich, Parts Glazed #5, 2018, glazed ceramic, labdanum, oil, stainless steel wall fixing, 5 × 18 × 14 cm
Anna Virnich, Parts Glazed #2, 2018, glazed ceramic, natural resin, oil, stainless steel wall fixing, 7,5 × 23 × 22 cm
Anna Virnich, Parts Glazed #1, 2018, glazed ceramic, truffle, truffle oil, essential oils, oil, stainless steel wall fixing, 6 × 23,5 × 19 cm
Anna Virnich, Untitled #52 (Warm Milky Acid, Silver Slip), 2018, Fabrics, threads, on wooden stretch frame, 220 × 190 cm
Anna Virnich, Untitled #53 (Squeezed Sweets, Slippery Silver), 2018, Fabrics, threads on wooden stretch frame, 220 × 190 cm
Anna Virnich, Untitled #56 (Iso E Super), 2018, Fabrics, threads on wooden stretch frame, 95 × 60 cm
Anna Virnich, Untitled #55 (CK Be- Sweat, Tonka, Plastic), 2018, Fabrics, threads on wooden stretch frame, 95 × 60 cm