Sarah Lehnerer at KIRCHGASSE

Artist: Sarah Lehnerer

Exhibition title: casting on

Venue: KIRCHGASSE, Steckborn, Switzerland

Date: March 26 – May 15, 2022

Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artist and KIRCHGASSE, Steckborn

In her exhibition casting on, Sarah Lehnerer devotes herself to binding and weaving as a figure of thought and as the basis of her current artistic practice. ‘Cast On’ refers to a repetitive movement in knitting, in which stitches are picked up to weave a thread into a fabric that becomes the vehicle for reproductive and artistic work. Sarah Lehnerer’s works refer to reproduction in the sense of reproductive gestures of repetition, but most notably in relation to feminist questions that give more attention to (mundane) reproductive tasks.

Whereas in her last exhibition it was primarily her own profile, that was assembled from individual image elements and dissolved again, in casting on it is single cut-out icons (memories / influences / markers?) that are drawn on fabrics and can be read as large-format paintings. In contrast to a text, in which signs are processed linearly, here the signs remain visible while spreading out to form a pattern. These are patterns of connections, supports, continuities or accesses and those that are still in the making.

The title of Sarah Lehnerer’s last exhibition I could turn myself into it instead of away from it was taken from Ann Truitt’s Daybook, a book that has reminded her of daily writing ever since. The desire for daily writing forms the basis for the ongoing correspondence with Jackie Grassmann, an excerpt of which will be published as part of the exhibition. In it, both artists combine their thoughts about writing and cultivate this space that allows them to step out of reality for a short time and reprogram the conditions within it for the longer term.

Texte zum Nachdenken invites you to a reading with Jackie Grassmann and Sarah Lehnerer on Saturday 7/5/2022 at 3:00 pm: Fireflies in the Dark. Letters on Ambiguities.