From a feminist perspective, Brätsch works with a variety of different media – including painting, drawing, photography, video and sculpture. Yet painting is always the starting point for her artistic practice. Anything at all can be a painting, whatever materials she happens to be using. In this way, she poses questions about what painting actually is, and what it can be.    

The title METAATEM can be understood in the light of the way she complicates painting as an art form. The word ‘meta’ can be translated as ‘self-reflexiveness’, while the German word ‘Atem’ means ‘breath’ or ‘spirit’. The title refers specifically to a series of new paintings in which Brätsch addresses spiritualist, symbolist and expressive ideas about painting as a channel for spiritual energy-forces – such as breathing.   

Brätsch’s problematising of painting refers mainly to ideas dating from earlier art history about what a painting is. One of the many questions she raises concerns the idea that paintings have to be expressive, revealing the artist’s feelings, unconscious drives or the inner life of the soul. This dialogue with art history gives her work a depth and complexity, and invites you to reflect on what you consider a painting to be. 

About Kerstin Brätsch:

Kerstin Brätsch (b. 1979 in Hamburg, Germany) has distinguished herself as a powerful and relevant voice in international contemporary art. She has exhibited her work in many leading institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Whitney Biennial, the Venice Biennale, and the Serpentine Gallery, London, UK. Brätsch works both solo and in collaboration with other artists, including Adele Röder, Debo Eilers and Serge Tcherepnin. She studied at Columbia University, New York and Universität der Künste, Berlin. She lives and works in Berlin.  

In 2017 she was awarded the Edvard Munch Art Award. The jury highlighted how Brätsch has secured her position in the international art scene via many impressive exhibitions and projects. The jury further stated that Brätsch has enormous potential to develop her career in the coming years, and that they looked forward to following her future work with great interest.  

Photo: Gabriel Rossell Santillan