Valerie Krause at Rolando Anselmi

Artist: Valerie Krause

Exhibition title: Absence included

Venue: Rolando Anselmi, Rome, Italy

Date: March 18 – May 20, 2023

Photography: Sebastiano Luciano / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Rolando Anselmi, Berlin/Rome

Rolando Anselmi is pleased to announce Absence Included, Valerie Krause’s second solo exhibition in the spaces of the gallery in Rome.

Pursuing the idea that an artwork reveals itself through its own morphology, the artist occupies the gallery space with sculptures made of very different consistencies. Simple construction materials stand alongside the ones traditionally used in sculpture. Despite their heterogeneity, the sculptures develop a common dynamic in their subtle movements, through which they can communicate with each other and with the space around them. Landscape echoes can be perceived in the works on display through curved lines, jagged contours or amorphous shapes, a reference that is found several times along the exhibition path, such as at the entrance with Landscape II and downstairs in the metal sculpture Untitled. The title of the exhibition, Absence Included, refers to an essential aspect of Valerie Krause’s research, that is integrating the form in the opposite of what we perceive as existing: absence has already become part of the sculpture during the creative process itself, at the moment of subtraction of the material. In her sculptures, empty space as form is given the same emphasis as occupied space.

The integration of what is absent is also evident in the way the sculptures become bearers of simultaneous moments, revealing different layers of the process: for instance, the cuts and repeated cross-shaped motifs of the metals in Timeline suggest the evolution in space and time of the work. This revelation is not necessarily recognisable at first glance, nor is it essential for reading Krause’s production; rather, it resonates as a conjecture about the spatial and temporal development of the work.

Valerie Krause (b. 1976, Herdecke, Germany), lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. Recent solo shows include: Galerie Rolando Anselmi (Rome, 2023; 2019; Berlin, 2015; 2013), Galerie L21 (Palma De Mallorca 2022; 2020; 2017; Madrid, 2015), Galerie Greta Meert (Brusselles, 2020; 2015; 2013), Kunst-Station Sankt Peter (Köln, 2016), Vitrine der Landesvertretung (Berlin, 2013). Recent group shows include: Galerie Rolando Anselmi (Rome, 2023; 2020; 2016; Berlin, 2014), Galerie L21 (Palma de Mallorca, 2022; 2021; 2020; 2019; 2016), Museum Villa San Michele (Capri, 2022), Kunstpalast Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf, 2022), Haus der Kunst (Palermo, 2021; 2016), Galerie Greta Meert (Brusselles, 2018; 2011), Edificio Vizcaya (Mexico City, 2018), Kunst im Tunnel (Düsseldorf, 2016), Kunsthaus NRW, (Aachen, 2016) Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Palermo (Palermo, 2013), Skulpturenpark Köln (Köln, 2013), Bundeskunsthalle Bonn (Bonn, 2013), Kunsthalle Recklinghausen (Recklinghausen, 2011). Her work was also exhibited in museums and Institutions such as Konrad Adenauer Siftung (Berlino, 2012; 2008) e Martin Gropius Bau (Berlin, 2008). In 2008 she was awarded at Art Cologne (April 16th-20th 2008) with the first “Audi Art Award for New Talent” which included the realization of a solo exhibition at the Cologne Artothek and the publication of an exhibition catalogue.