Artist: Samuel Henne
Exhibition title: shifts & tilts
Curated by: Tomke Braun
Venue: Kunstverein Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Date: June 16 – July 28, 2019
Photography: All images copyright and courtesy of the artist and © Kunstverein Göttingen
The Kunstverein Göttingen presents the exhibition, shifts & tilts with works by Samuel Henne, New York fellow 2018 of the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung and the state of Lower Saxony.
Henne’s work is shaped by an interest in artistic and cultural theory, which questions production conditions and constructions of images and their interpretation. The isolation of details or shifts in content and perspective make structural aspects visible in his artistic work, as well as in their presentation. Whereas, in the past he repeatedly made use of museum archival imagery and photographic documents, his new series of works increasingly leans towards the abstraction thereof. For example, in the work “conditions” (2019), Henne speaks about possible stagings and settings without basing it on any actual existing spaces. The motifs’ found objects and projected image material thereby become a fragmented self-reference within the image construct. The hand as a reoccurring motif in Henne’s works again reappears in the multi-part work “Hand to hand” (2019), whose production he began in New York. The sculpture “The Hand of Rodin” from 1917, serves as an associative starting point to further delve into different historical aspects of myth, misinterpretation and originality inherent to the object. He criticizes the creator myth of the sculptor in content and motif using different techniques and media, as well as digital reproduction possibilities, to question its contemporary relevance. Henne also addresses shifts in topics and perspectives of his work by leaving the image space, and through the design of the exhibition space repeatedly reflects the fundamental aspects of a museum’s staging strategies.
The New York Scholarship is awarded by the State of Lower Saxony and the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung to outstanding artists from Lower Saxony. shifts & tilts will be shown from 9 November to 29 December 2019 at the Halle für Kunst in Lüneburg, following the Kunstverein Göttingen exhibition. A catalog with written contributions by Marlies Wirth and David Ebony will be published on the occasion of the exhibition.
Biography
Samuel Henne (*1982 in Göttingen, lives in Hannover) studied at The University of Art Braunschweig and finished his studies as master student of Prof. Dörte Eißfeldt. Alongside solo shows at Kunstverein Hannover, Münchner Stadtmuseum, Deutsches Haus at New York University, he also participated in numerous institutional group exhibitions at NRW-Forum Düsseldorf, Deichtorhallen Hamburg and the Goethe Institute Washington, amongst others. Henne’s work has received multiple awards, most recently the one-year residency scholarship at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York.
