Installments

Installment #5: Sophie Gaucher – From Scratch

Sophie Gaucher (1984, Poitiers) has created drawings and ceramics for the last six years. Her past films were animations, in which narrative was essential to bringing her humanoid creatures and organic structures to life. The film “Panoplie” (2017) marks new territory in her practice. With it she is addressing the problem of “the decorative” in her previous works. The black figure in her film doesn’t have eyes any more, and needs not to be seen as a creature or human, nor a male or female. It moves around things, which are not considered sculptures any longer, but objects. Each object is dedicated to one performance only - throw, drive, fall, run, press, juggle, mix. The movements performed remind of rituals and theatre, but are reduced to the simplicity of gestures.

Installment #5: Sophie Gaucher – From Scratch presents “Panoplie” and the objects depicted in the film at kma71. The show also stages an encounter. While spending time in Sophie’s show, I will write an essay about the installment, which will be published on kma71’s website after completion. The essay will take its start at Giorgio Agamben’s text “Notes on Gesture” from 1992 in which his thoughts on the relationship between the gesture and cinema are laid out. It is my intention to juxtapose this eclectic, yet influential text on contemporary aesthetics with Sophie’s works, and use this opportunity to inquire about the dynamics inherent to such a juxtaposition of aesthetic theory and artistic practice.

Sophie Gaucher was born in Poitiers (France) in 1984. She lives and works in Paris. She received a Fine Arts Diploma from École Européenne de l’Image de Poitiers and l’École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2011. Her work is represented in private collections, such as Les amis de l’École d’Art du Beauvaisis, France (2014), Conseil départemental de l’Eure, France (2011), and the Vidéothèque Nomade, Brussels, Belgium (2008). From Scratch at kma71 is her first solo exhibition in Germany.

The installment will be accompanied by an edition by Sophie Gaucher, which will be made available for purchase on Editions after the opening.

Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday, 12 - 6 pm, and by appointment (info@kma71berlin.de)