Sophie Gogl at Kunsthaus Glarus

Artist: Sophie Gogl

Exhibition title: Die knusprige Nichte

Curated by: Melanie Ohnemus

Venue: Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus, Switzerland

Date: February 26 – June 25, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Kunsthaus Glarus

Note: Interview with Sophie Gogl by Melanie Ohnemus is available here

Sophie Gogl operates on various pictorial levels as a painter. The canvas serves as her primary pictorial space, but in extending how she approaches certain pictorial fragments she continually incorporates objects and installations. Various aspects of youth and popular culture serves as the basis for her exhibition Die knusprige Nichte (1). Gogl draws from digital and personal image materials to create an associatively ordered narrative system that is presented in a variety of formulated ways. Her new paintings combine serial formal decisions, including selecting a specific color palette, with images from her personal archive or digital media. For instance, a series of memories of a specific parking lot as a compelling non-place, painted in watercolor on acrylic, is combined with bathroom selfies and a portrait of the American actress Dakota Johnson. In other works, she extends the painterly space to formats of exhibiting per se, e.g. when painting exhibition walls in a diamond pattern that evokes a variety of associations: a harlequin, shopping for the first time at New Yorker, or her first Vans she wore out to the point of decay. In this sense, Sophie Gogl’s works are based on a linking of her own experiences of growing up to visual cultures and how they appear in media and art. Gogl makes use of ostensibly trivial themes, combining wistfully colored elements with flashes of cynical commentaries in a fragile narrative that addresses both simple sensitivities as well as encrusted social structures.

Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, Prinz, Acrylic and watercolor on canvas, 2023. Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin. Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, deine Mutter, Acrylic on canvas, 2023. Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin. Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, Blondie, Acrylic and watercolor on canvas, 2023. Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin. Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, Kiss & Go, Acrylic and watercolor on canvas, 2023. Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin. Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, BRONARR, Acrylic on canvas, 2023. Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin. Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, Rüdigerhof, Dreamhouse, Acrylic and watercolor on canvas, 2023. Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin. Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, Marylin, Acrylic on canvas, 2023. Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin. Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, Mime, Acrylic and watercolor on canvas, 2023. Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin. Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, die grosse magentafarbene Teenie, (front), wood, emulsion paint, 2023. Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin. Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, die grosse magentafarbene Teenie, (back), wood, emulsion paint, 2023. Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin. Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, die kleine Feuerlöscher, (front), wood, emulsion paint, 2023. Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin. Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, die kleine Feuerlöscher, wood, emulsion paint, 2023. Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin. Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, die kleine Feuerlöscher, (front, detail), wood, emulsion paint, 2023. Courtesy the artist and KOW, Berlin. Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano

Sophie Gogl, Die knusprige Nichte, installation view, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2023. Photo: Cedric Mussano