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  • bones and all: Melting wax and molten metal at super bien!

Review

bones and all: Melting wax and molten metal at super bien!

The new show in the greenhouse at super bien! places the focus on the formation and metamorphosis of sculpture.

Grau+Mieves @ superbien! Photo: Elisabeth Sonneck

Tucked into a Hof near Bernauer Straße lies super bien! greenhouse for contemporary art. Currently showing at this half-hidden space is, bones and all, by Anna Lena Grau and Anna Mieves. It feels like you’ve stumbled on an archaeological dig. Initially, the installation seems underwhelming: lining the floor of the project space is sand scattered with crudely cast metal objects. But the concepts and complexities reveal themselves.

Pieces of metal appear like fossilised forms, as if time has transformed living things into glistening objects

The installation appears to have been made up on the spot. And, in many ways, it has.

Molten aluminium has been poured on-site into carved-out imprints, and slabs of wax melt as the temperature inside the greenhouse rises. It fits into the project space’s theme of the year: ‘Relating to Flow’, as substances transition from fluid to solid and vice versa.

Understandably this is not a flashy, polished installation but a site of action. It uncovers an unseen process. Here the intermediate phases that go into the formation of a fully-fledged sculpture are made evident.

Grau+Mieves @ superbien! Photo: Jochen Wermann

The outside location and proximity to the earth create the illusion that it is a birthplace of sculpture with dust, heat, sweat and scorched sand negatives. Pieces of metal appear like fossilised forms, as if time has transformed living things into glistening objects. Usually, super bien! has a visually dramatic programme curated by Elisabeth Sonneck. However, this exhibition requires a more contemplative approach.

The originality of bones and all comes from showcasing the process rather than a fixation on the finished piece; it successfully brings to light the experimentation and metamorphosis that goes into creation.

  • bones and all, 09.06.-23.07.2023
  • super bien! Schwedter Str. 232, 10435 Berlin