Exhibition

From November 4, 2018 to February 24, 2019, the Kunstforum der TU Darmstadt and the MUSEUM Jagdschloss Kranichstein are showing the exhibition SAUVAGE. Emmanuelle Rapin & Angelika Krinzinger.

The artistic universe of artist and qualified haute couture embroiderer Emmanuelle Rapin (*1974 in Épinal, France) combines fashion and archaic art and cultural techniques to create a multi-layered and surprising assemblage. For her virtuoso works of art, she uses motifs such as hunting or traditional crafts such as embroidery. Created from organic materials such as bones, feathers, precious stones or taxidermied animals, she creates narratively charged objects that can inspire our imagination and lead us into unsettling realms.

The exhibition title SAUVAGE (French for »wild«) refers to the untamed nature of the forest as well as the untamed power of art. In Greek mythology and fairy tales, the forest is often the place of uncertainty, danger and disaster – but also of metamorphoses: the story of Narcissus, the figure of the goddess of the hunt Artemis, Dionysian rituals, but also the fairy tales of Hansel and Gretel, the Thumbelina, the six swans, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast are all located there. The forest metaphor is immanent in almost all of Emmanuelle Rapin's works, in the form of the fairy tales on which her works are based or the material from which they are made.

For Emmanuelle Rapin, embroidery is not a peaceful affair. Her gold-plated thimble »The sleeping beauty« (2010) vividly symbolizes the link between protection and aggression. The title in turn refers to a very unique interpretation of the well-known fairy tale: Sleeping Beauty is not only a victim, but also a perpetrator. With its ritualized, repetitive activity, embroidery also signals the passage of time, a single stitch marks temporality.

Her series of objects, which could also be worn like fashion accessories, is an interpretation of baroque still lifes. She illustrates the becoming and passing away, but also the fragile beauty of existence. She chooses such diverse and unusual materials as mammal fur, coral, pearls, birds' feet or the sexual organs of plants. Objects such as Plaie d'épaule, Les muselées amoureuses or Roccoco bellette illustrate the ambivalence of an artisanal activity that can nurture, repair and recreate with needle and thread, but must also be brutal in order to create. At the MUSEUM Jagdschloss Kranichstein, Emmanuelle Rapin's still lifes are juxtaposed with the historical still lifes of Zacharias Sonntag, who, as court painter to the Landgraves of Hesse Darmstadt in the 18th century, also used the forest as a metaphor for wildness and unpredictability, but interpreted it as controllable by man through his choice of motifs such as dead birds, hares, deer and hunting equipment. He also reminds us of the transience of life and appearances – albeit with painterly means.

Emmanuelle Rapin's poetic exhibits condense multi-layered stories and memories. At the Kunstforum der TU Darmstadt, they will encounter the photographic series »An Hand« by Viennese artist Angelika Krinzinger (*1969 in Innsbruck) as well as selected exhibits from the MUSEUM Jagdschloss Kranichstein.

The photo series »An Hand« by Angelika Krinzinger is also full of associations: Krinzinger photographed the historical portrait gallery of the Habsburgs in Ambras Castle near Innsbruck, but focused exclusively on the hands. The rest of the body is missing. The serial arrangement of these various »hand portraits« with their different gestures creates a semiotics of gestures, a kind of secret language. In those days, it was possible to decipher the meaning of each hand gesture, such as indications of virtue, moral behavior or virginity, but this is no longer the case today. »An Hand« provocatively poses the question of the whole and the significance of the detail, in the past and today. In addition, »An Hand« invites discussion about communication in historical times and the current use of language and gestures.