Sophie ReinholdDas kann das Leben kosten

The heartbreaking pattern of the present, or “a kind of post-Corona Impressionism”: “Absence is a recurring theme in Sophie Reinhold’s work: what is left out, what is left unsaid, what is uninvited. Basic rules of abstraction. That not everything has to be said. This produces something like a fundamental mood. A pattern, perhaps. It creates a place apart from language. A very distinct taciturnity. With a large number of motifs, the overview of a pattern is easily lost. Disorder spreads. Distance helps to regain an overview. As soon as the repetition of the motif is confirmed, the pattern has successfully asserted itself, and that triggers both the obsessive spirit and the spirit of serenity … The truly clever thing about Sophie Reinhold’s painting is that the artist assumes, and proves again and again in her art, that her reality cannot be smoothed out, that the event has long since taken place before it can be forced into a form. Her art practises a kaleidoscopic multiplicity and follows no one-sided formula; that is what makes this oeuvre so varied and multi-layered. A method becomes apparent: the decision to sand her painting down, the applying and removing of her pictures – this reflects the idea that our experience of reality amounts to a wearing away of everyday life … Das kann das Leben kosten was, as far as I know, the first Berlin exhibition to open after the easing of the restrictions imposed because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The paintings, made before the global crisis, demonstrate that Sophie Reinhold probes our clotted present with fitting urgency.“ Tenzing Barshee

Exhibition:
CFA Contemporary Fine Arts Berlin, 20/5 – 20/6/2020