Metes and Bounds
Catherine Bertola and Pauline Kraneis
Galerie M + R Fricke, Berlin, Germany
1 May to 19 June 2010
Catherine Bertola shows two recent works Unseen by all but me alone and From the palace at Hillstreet.
Recent work From the palace at Hillstreet has developed from the artist's on going exploration of the nascent stages of the women's movement in the 18th century. In From the palace at Hillstreet, three fragments of carpet are shown, which have been re-made over a period of nine months by the artist and by volunteers. This carpet was originally commissioned by Elizabeth Montagu, the leader of the Bluestockings Society and was made for her dressing room, which held the first meeting of this underwritten but powerfully influential group that affected the history of women's rights.
The importance of this work lies not only in the re-activation of a hand-craft which is now mechanised and exported out-with the UK, but also to remember the importance of the Bluestockings Society in history. The meetings held by the group were social events in which the group's members used their fortunate social and financial standing to initiate the fight for gender equality in the UK at a very early stage. The members of the Bluestocking Society sought and effected change directly by using their fortunate position to commissioning talented female practitioners of the time in order to see them included in art and craft history.
Pauline Kraneis is devoted to the definition of drawing in parallel to the definition of both mental and physical space.
Kraneis' work often uses furnishing within the interiors of both private and public buildings to explore the cross-over of mental and physical space. By the omission of furniture or interior features these interventions translate the chosen spaces into installations which pull apart the visual perception of the space .
The artist acts with boisterous action to create spaces where imagination and reality overlap, and are reproduced on paper in order to draw the viewer into the middle image.
image:
Catherine Bertola
From the Palace at Hillstreet (detail)
2009
Canvas and Wool
Fragments of a Robert Adam carpet pattern designed for Mrs Montagu 'Queen of the Bluestockings'.
Made from 96 segments stitched by over 60 people over a six month period.
250 x 250 cm
Posts
