02.09.– 14.10.2023
ASPN Galerie, Leipzig
with Jonas MonkaText by Hanna Thuma ︎
The title of the new exhibition by Harry Hachmeister and Jonas Monka is borrowed from a text by the author and trans activist Lou Sullivan: "I wanna look like what I am but don't know what someone like me looks like". "Someone like me" raises questions that we relate not only to what we see, but also to ourselves. Who am I in relation to the other person? How different and how the same?
Hachmeister and Monka devote themselves intensively to the human and non-human body. Hachmeister works intuitively and allows his figures to develop in space. New forms are constantly being created, in which something of himself can always be found. The artist has been working with ceramics for a few years now. During his residency at the EKWC, he developed a new formal language. The objects are no longer completely glazed, but now tell the story of the creation process.
Jonas Monka works more conceptually. "Time Recording Equipment" is an ongoing archive with his own body imprints in clay. At the same time, it documents the contact between clay and skin. In this way, the concept of the archive is also questioned. The colorfulness of the objects brings them back into the now, as they always exist uniquely in the moment, depending on the viewing angle and incidence of light.
The objects by both artists playfully cross boundaries, unite opposites, refer to their creation process and thus show us the absurdity of binary ways of thinking.
Hanna Thuma (translated with deepl.com)
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Exhibition views: Stefan Fischer
www.aspngalerie.de/show/harry-hachmeister-jonas-monka