Ivana Bašić: Metempsychosis - The Passion of Pneumatics

The exhibition "Metempsychosis: The Passion of Pneumatics" runs like a rite through both floors of the pavilion and brings together sculptures, videos, drawings and a large-format pneumatic centerpiece in Bašić's poetically deeply nuanced material language.

– Photography by Sarah Ringrave

A storm swirls through the historic building of the Schinkel Pavilion and with it clouds of dust blow through the first institutional solo exhibition of New York-based artist Ivana Bašić (born 1986 in Belgrade, Serbia).

Bašić's humanoid sculptures speak to her childhood experiences of war, violence, brutality and physical confinement during the collapse of her native Yugoslavia in the 1990s, addressing intergenerational trauma, post-humanist feminism and the quest for immortality. These themes are broken by the disarmingly delicate bodies that cling to supporting structures such as tubes and prostheses.

At the center of the exhibition is a seven-meter-wide, room-specific sculpture that takes up the entire exhibition space on the second floor. Between two large panes of glass, small metal hammers in the core of the sculpture gradually smash an alabaster stone into dust, which swirls up with the blowing storm. The repetitive movements of the hammers, driven by air pressure, are coordinated with the rhythm of the artist's breathing and are reminiscent of the Gnostic idea of pneuma, which in Greek means both "breath" and "spirit". In the teachings of Gnosticism, pneumatics are the highest order of beings - those who are driven by the "breath of life", the spirit that transforms beyond the material realm.

On the first floor, visitors are invited to explore further sculptures in various stages of transformation. Drawings reminiscent of uterine forms, nebulae and cellular life appear to be the incubators of the sculptures. In several of them, flesh-colored folds of skin are surrounded by shiny bronze armor that seems to protect the delicate flesh.

Runtime: Fri, 07/06/2024 to Sun, 01/09/2024

Takes place here:

• Schinkel Pavillon