All Beauty Must Die
Laura Schawelka,
Luise Marchand
Luise Marchand
Villa Heike, Berlin
10.03. — 27.04.2024
The exhibition All Beauty Must Die at Villa Heike in Berlin-Lichtenberg presents photographic works by Berlin-based artists Luise Marchand and Laura Schawelka. The works on display explore and question themes such as the preservation of beauty, death and transience.
For her Muttererde series, Marchand presents staged cut flowers and stems that have been prepared for sale using tools such as a lighter, steel needle, thread and hammer, thereby reflecting on the processes of commercialisation and consumption. Coming from a florist family herself, the artist thematises the comprehensive and contemporary significance of the florist industry under the influence of value-added capitalism in her photographs. In doing so, she plays with the visual vocabulary of the advertising industry and thereby questions the synthetic production of perfection in the manufacturing of flowers and plants. Her series can be seen as a commentary on the growing trend towards synthetic perfection in the production of flowers, while at the same time highlighting the inherent paradoxes within an industry that is forced to produce perfection. Themes such as aesthetics and transience come to the fore in Marchand's staged compositions, thereby prompting reflection on the (changing) conditions of beauty in an age of manufactured perfection.
In her series AGAIN, Schawelka combines themes of replication, interpretation and consumption, in which photographs of the wax statue of Marlene Dietrich at Madame Tussauds are juxtaposed with images of a replica of the bust of Nefertiti. The artist often takes historical references as a starting point to explore the visual representation of objects and the mechanisms by which value is assigned. Her series AGAIN delves deeper into this topic, in which she also examines the complex relationship between representation and illusion, copy and authenticity. Furthermore, the series serves as an investigation into the role of the presentation and display of objects by highlighting the commodification of aesthetics and questioning the mechanisms of symbolic images and motifs. As such, her work serves as a reflection on the complexity of visual culture and aesthetics in an age dominated by reproduction and consumption. Brought together in the exhibition space, the works of Marchand and Schawelka open up a dialogue about beauty, transience and the complex interplay between representation and manipulation. As such, All Beauty Must Die is an exploration of the ephemeral nature of beauty while simultaneously addressing the passing of time.
In her photography, Luise Marchand (*1987, Saxony-Anhalt) draws on an aesthetics and a visual vocabulary that remind the viewer of the advertising industry. The collision of organic and artificial elements is central to her work. In her images she juxtaposes all kinds of accessories for self-optimization with the imperfectibility of transient things, including the human body. Luise Marchand lives and works in Berlin. In 2019 she received the Leipzig G2 Kunsthalle Art Prize. She was a recipient of the Kunstverein Hannover’s Atelier Scholarship Villa Minimo in 2020. In the same year she received the Wüstenrot Foundation’s award for documentary photography. Recently her film installation Liquid Company/Flüssige Gesellschaft was shown at Museum Folkwang, Essen as well as at the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts.
The work of Laura Schawelka (*1988 in Munich) focuses on the paradox of images, using photography, video and installations. She questions different forms of representation and how they generate value. She studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt and subsequently received her Master of Fine Arts at the California Institute of the Arts. Schawelka has been honoured with numerous awards and scholarships. In 2017, she worked as an artist-in-residence at the Cité des Arts in Paris with the Hessische Kulturstiftung and won the viennacontemporary Artist-in-Residence Award in 2019. She has exhibited her work in various institutions and galleries in Europe and the USA, including the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (Stuttgart 2021), the Goethe-Institut (Paris 2018), the Kasseler Kunstverein (Kassel 2018) and FILIALE (Frankfurt 2022). An extensive catalogue was published at the beginning of 2019 for her first institutional solo exhibition at the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Ludwigshafen. Schawelka lives and works in Berlin.
For her Muttererde series, Marchand presents staged cut flowers and stems that have been prepared for sale using tools such as a lighter, steel needle, thread and hammer, thereby reflecting on the processes of commercialisation and consumption. Coming from a florist family herself, the artist thematises the comprehensive and contemporary significance of the florist industry under the influence of value-added capitalism in her photographs. In doing so, she plays with the visual vocabulary of the advertising industry and thereby questions the synthetic production of perfection in the manufacturing of flowers and plants. Her series can be seen as a commentary on the growing trend towards synthetic perfection in the production of flowers, while at the same time highlighting the inherent paradoxes within an industry that is forced to produce perfection. Themes such as aesthetics and transience come to the fore in Marchand's staged compositions, thereby prompting reflection on the (changing) conditions of beauty in an age of manufactured perfection.
In her series AGAIN, Schawelka combines themes of replication, interpretation and consumption, in which photographs of the wax statue of Marlene Dietrich at Madame Tussauds are juxtaposed with images of a replica of the bust of Nefertiti. The artist often takes historical references as a starting point to explore the visual representation of objects and the mechanisms by which value is assigned. Her series AGAIN delves deeper into this topic, in which she also examines the complex relationship between representation and illusion, copy and authenticity. Furthermore, the series serves as an investigation into the role of the presentation and display of objects by highlighting the commodification of aesthetics and questioning the mechanisms of symbolic images and motifs. As such, her work serves as a reflection on the complexity of visual culture and aesthetics in an age dominated by reproduction and consumption. Brought together in the exhibition space, the works of Marchand and Schawelka open up a dialogue about beauty, transience and the complex interplay between representation and manipulation. As such, All Beauty Must Die is an exploration of the ephemeral nature of beauty while simultaneously addressing the passing of time.
In her photography, Luise Marchand (*1987, Saxony-Anhalt) draws on an aesthetics and a visual vocabulary that remind the viewer of the advertising industry. The collision of organic and artificial elements is central to her work. In her images she juxtaposes all kinds of accessories for self-optimization with the imperfectibility of transient things, including the human body. Luise Marchand lives and works in Berlin. In 2019 she received the Leipzig G2 Kunsthalle Art Prize. She was a recipient of the Kunstverein Hannover’s Atelier Scholarship Villa Minimo in 2020. In the same year she received the Wüstenrot Foundation’s award for documentary photography. Recently her film installation Liquid Company/Flüssige Gesellschaft was shown at Museum Folkwang, Essen as well as at the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts.
The work of Laura Schawelka (*1988 in Munich) focuses on the paradox of images, using photography, video and installations. She questions different forms of representation and how they generate value. She studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt and subsequently received her Master of Fine Arts at the California Institute of the Arts. Schawelka has been honoured with numerous awards and scholarships. In 2017, she worked as an artist-in-residence at the Cité des Arts in Paris with the Hessische Kulturstiftung and won the viennacontemporary Artist-in-Residence Award in 2019. She has exhibited her work in various institutions and galleries in Europe and the USA, including the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (Stuttgart 2021), the Goethe-Institut (Paris 2018), the Kasseler Kunstverein (Kassel 2018) and FILIALE (Frankfurt 2022). An extensive catalogue was published at the beginning of 2019 for her first institutional solo exhibition at the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Ludwigshafen. Schawelka lives and works in Berlin.
