Priska von Martin

Priska von Martin’s driving force was to grasp being human as a construct, so she sought to delineate artistically what constitutes human existence, including isolation, dysfunctionality and pain, but also harmony, wholeness and beauty. She captured the essential quality of human existence in animal figures as well as in female bodies and torsos. Her art was directed as much at the corporeal, the visibly physical – injury, displacement, dislocation – as at the spiritual, the invisible, the intangible – concerning feelings, instincts, states of being. Who was Priska von Martin? What hopes did she attach to giving her estate to Freiburg, the city of her birth, so far away from Munich, where she worked, on the vague chance of (one day) being perceived in her own right? And if she was indeed counting on this outside (time-shifted) gaze, why then did she hardly document her work at all? Which parts of her biography did she prefer to leave in the dark? How do we deal with the information about this artist, who is described by most of her companions as a discreet person? To what extent does the absence of any assessment of political events, of social contexts and of her own milieu permit the conclusion that she did not engage with any of this

Exhibitions:
Museum für Neue Kunst/Städtische Museen Freiburg, 4/4 – 13/9/2020
Gerhard-Marcks-Haus Bremen, 12/9/2020 – 21/11/2021