From April 27th through June 23rd Galerie EIGEN + ART Berlin is presenting the current work „Heute nicht. (Not today.)“ by Birgit Brenner.
Birgit Brenner (born 1964) was studying at the Hochschule der Künste (HdK), Berlin where she made her Master of Arts at Rebecca Horn in 1996. Since 2007 Birgit Brenner is a professor for Fine Art, Photography, Drawing, New Media at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart.
„NOT TODAY.“ is a sociocritical as well as a very political work this time. Birgit Brenner’s installations seem like stage designs or film sets and the viewer will be pushed directly into a piece of documented society.
In short textual episodes – which are one time attached directly onto the wall, another time appearing on cardboard signs like stage directions or on digital prints of scenic photographs – Birgit Brenner can capture laconically the given circumstances of German everyday life.
Her latest work is dealing with the topic of poverty and failure. The title „NOT TODAY.“ was cut out from simple cardboards and mounted on a wooden construction of approx. 15 m length.
The writing is reminding on an advertising logo on the outskirts, extinct long time ago. In the installation two fates are confronted with each other, the one of losers and the one of winners.
Losers are the fund less people, who are not able to take part of the social life anymore. The loss of financial power is putting them into the offside of the society ruled by consumption.
„The money has to last. Until the end. A simple calculation.“ Winners are the few who are ranging carefree between their own kinds. „(...) We are having a gardener, a nanny and enough money. My profession is makings me happy. (...)“
Through the well directed, episodically choice by the artist, a short view is enough, to find out about the entire society.
The installation by Birgit Brenner is accompanied by drawings. These are collages of various materials and media, similar to her room filling works. The drawings are spotting the most spontaneous part of her narrative work and evoke intentionally the interest in a closer look.