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Ulrike Kuschel

Kranz (Wreath)

2008

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Ulrike Kuschel uses photography, often combined with text, to explore the politics and history of place in contemporary Berlin. She obscures the traditionally assumed informative aspect of photography through abstraction and loose appropriations of Pop and Minimalist art. Her assemblage "Kranz" consists of a large fiberboard panel that leans against the wall like one of Richard Serra’s prop pieces. Divided into a vertical diptych, the work combines a monochromatic orange field in the upper half with a photograph of a commemorative wreath from the Neue Wache memorial in Berlin in the lower half. The hard-to-read photograph, obscured by a large Benday dot screen reminiscent of the work of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, alludes to Germany’s traumatic past as something buried and unattainable. Kuschel’s mass-produced, serialized procedures using inexpensive laser printing, screen printing, and laminated fiberboard, along with the dotted screen that obscures the image of the wreath, act like a film or veil, creating distance from history and memory in post-Wall Germany and evoking the ambiguity of the cultural and political “landscape” of Berlin. [Exhibition brochure text, 2013]

  • Artist Ulrike Kuschel (German, b. 1972)
  • Title Kranz (Wreath)
  • Date 2008
  • Medium Laser print and offset lithograph with silkscreen and laminated fiberboard on fiberboard
  • Dimensions unframed | 78 3/4 x 39 3/8 x 3/4 in.
  • Credit line University purchase, Parsons Fund, 2008
  • Object number WU 2008.0008

Contemporary German Art: Selections from the Permanent Collection
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 05/03/2013 - 09/07/2013

Focus on Photography: Recent Acquisitions
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, 05/07/2010 - 07/26/2010

Heimatgeschichte (Home Stories)
Klosterfelde Galerie (Berlin, Germany), 07/09/2008 - 08/30/2008

11/18/2008
Klosterfelde Galerie, Berlin

This artwork record may be incomplete or need refinement. Our staff actively researches the collection and revises records when new information is available. If you have questions or comments about this record, please contact us.