Raphaela Vogel, My Appropriation of Her Holy Hollowness, 2021, polyurethane elastomer casts, aluminium rods, audiorama ball speakers, video, sound. Dimensions variable; Exhibition view, Galerie Gregor Staiger, Zurich. Courtesy the artist & Galerie Gregor Staiger, Zurich; © the artist

On the heels of her participation at the Venice Biennial, the gallery was honoured to present two exhibitions by Raphaela Vogel this summer. These shows took place across our main location in Zurich on Limmatstrasse 268, dedicated entirely to My Appropriation of Her Holy Hollowness, 2021, an installation first made for Confort Moderne, Poitiers, as well as Vor den Toren der Sprache, which comprises an entirely new body of work, in our temporary space at Zollikerstrasse 251, a former IT office of a private bank.

My Appropriation of Her Holy Hollowness, 2021

Raphaela Vogel, My Appropriation of Her Holy Hollowness, 2021, polyurethane elastomer casts, aluminium rods, audiorama ball speakers, video, sound. Dimensions variable; Exhibition views, Galerie Gregor Staiger, Zurich, © the artist; Confort Moderne, Poitiers, Photography: Pierre Antoine

Raphaela Vogel, My Appropriation of Her Holy Hollowness, 2021, polyurethane elastomer casts, aluminium rods, audiorama ball speakers, video, sound. Video and sound from the installation

My Appropriation of Her Holy Hollowness was originally presented at Confort Moderne, Poitiers in the summer of 2021 which marked Vogel’s first solo institutional exhibition in France. For the presentation in Zurich, Vogel has reconfigured the installation in response to the gallery’s architecture. Five metal poles are suspended from the gallery skylights, each bearing three plastic-cast dual lions down the length. Animals make recurrent appearances in Vogel’s works, where she explores symbolic representations of traditions and values associated with them, and in the case of lions, particularly their connotations with authority and masculinity. At the very bottom, spherical speakers are tightly bound to the tip of each pole, playing the tune of “Gute Nacht” (Good Night, 1828), from Schubert’s “Winterreise” (Winter Journey) series. German poet Wilhelm Müller had written the original words to the song, telling the story of a love lost and the subsequent pain encountered. Utilising the melody of the song, Vogel replaces Muller’s lyrics with excerpts of a heated farewell letter from a former lover, in which they claim right over various cultural spaces following their split. As one navigates the installation by the rhythmic positioning of the sculptures, the musical score follows through from speaker to speaker, offering a study of an intimate, private memory of the artist... [Find the full text and documentation in the following PDF:]

Vor den Toren der Sprache, 2022

Raphaela Vogel

Der Mann der Rückwärts spricht (video extract)

2022

Metal frame, electric spring cradle, video projector, video: 5:14 min

In Vor den Toren der Sprache, Vogel presents an ambitious large-scale installation, along with a body of new sculptural and video works concerned with the possibilities and limitations of language. Occupying the main room of the space, an expansive new installation bisects the room with a gate-like structure in the center. Upon proceeding through, one is met with audio sound recorded of pre-verbal infants, emitted from speakers which are fastened to the metal framework of the installation. The work’s title Vor den Toren der Sprache (which as well lends its name to the exhibition) translates to “At the gates of language”, alluding to a unique threshold in which, during early infancy, the capability to reproduce all possible phonemes is at a heightened level. It is proposed that up to eight months, infants have the capability to absorb and pick up any sounds, hence languages, without accent. Past this stage, their potential begins to significantly narrow as they begin imitating phonetically their immediate surroundings. The speakers in the piece are held by small, plastic casts of cherubs, along with pastel-hued flowers which adorn the metal arches that part the space. The metal skeleton of the titular installation is propped up by twelve sculptures of radiators on either side of the arches, each cast in polyurethane elastomer (like the figures on the arches). Vogel frequently utilises the material in her practice which gives her forms an almost unearthly quality. Encountering Vogel’s plastic skeletons of heaters, one can discern references such as Michael Asher and his seminal work Kunsthalle Bern 1992, where he removed the radiators from the Kunsthalle’s exhibition spaces only to reassemble them as a group in the entrance of the institution... [Find the full text and documentation in the following PDF:]

Selected Recent Press: Eleonora Milani, Flash Art, Misaligned Identities: Raphaela Vogel, Issue 339, Summer 2022, 10.06.2022. Dean Kissick, Spike Magazine, The Downward Spiral: 59th Venice Biennale, 12.05.2022. Jason Farago, The New York Times, Looking Inward, and Back, at a Biennale for the History Books, 30.04.2022. Ewa Hess, Tagesanzeiger, Kunstbiennale 2022: Die Teufelsfrauen von Venedig, 30.04.2022. Adrian Searle, The Guardian, Cyborgs, sirens and a singing murderer: the thrilling, oligarch-free Venice Biennale – review, 25.04.2022. Demetrio Paparoni, Domani, Dentro e fuori le capsule. Un’impronta surrealista segna la Biennale di Venezia, 23.04.2022. ZDF aspekte, Die grenzenlose Kraft der Kunst, 21:07, 22.04.2022. Kat Herriman, Cultured, The Body Creates and Inspires at the 2022 Venice Biennale, 21.04.2022. Andrew Durbin, Frieze, The Milk of Dreams Tests a Theory of the Posthuman, 20.04.2022

Raphaela Vogel (*1988, Nuremberg, Germany) studied at Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Nuremberg (2009— 2012), Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule, Frankfurt/Main (2011—2014) and De Ateliers, Amsterdam (2014—2016). Vogel is currently participating in the 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia in the main exhibition The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani. She will have a major solo exhibition at DePont Museum, Tilburg in 2023.

Recent solo exhibitions include My Appropriation of Her Holy Hollowness, Le Confort Moderne, Poitiers (2021); Mucksmäuschenmusik, Kleiner Wasserspeicher, Berlin (2021); Raphaela Vogel, Kunsthalle Giessen (2021); La Scultura Senza Qualità, Galerie Gregor Staiger, Milan (2020); Bellend bin ich aufgewacht, Kunsthaus Bregenz (2019); Vogelspinne, BQ, Berlin (2019); A Woman’s Sports Car, Kapsel 09: Raphaela Vogel, Haus der Kunst, Munich (2019); Ultranackt, Kunsthalle Basel (2018), Gipsy King Kong, Kunstpalais, Erlangen (2018), Gregor’s Loch, Galerie Gregor Staiger, Zurich (2018); She Shah, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Munster (2016) and Raphaela und der große Kunstverein, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2015).