ENDMORAENE.DE
Ortsbezogene Kunstprojekte

Pink,
2011

The idea is based on examining the architecture of the three-storey barracks building: its history and function, the premises and finally its slow decay.
The color PINK redraws the house, creates new contours and connections and attacks it. Because contrary to military camouflage, PINK provides the greatest possible visibility. PINK is also the symbol of a subversive lifestyle, a relaxed attitude that opposes the strictness and discipline of barracks life. PINK is also the complementary color to the green of nature, which is slowly reclaiming the building and taking over the entire area. This overgrowth creates the special atmosphere of the area and makes the building appear as part of it.
In the first model for PINK/STATSREFUSAL, the entire façade was to be painted with precisely placed pink stripes, a synonym for the military camouflage pattern; the originally gray concrete building of the barracks would have been set in motion; a kind of tilting effect for the eye.
In the course of the project, when walking through the rooms, discovering traces of use and various stages of decay, the focus was clearly placed on the gutted buildings and their internal and external reference points were redefined. The brush with the color PINK became a tool, a magnifying glass, a telescope, an eye, marking and documenting the journey of discovery.
There are elements of surprise throughout the three floors:Pink window frames capture the view of the green surroundings, pink interventions underline the traces of life in the barracks more than 30 years ago and make locker pictures, painted vignettes, tractors, as well as plaster and wallpaper remains visible in other contexts.
Brushes and PINK (pink paint) will also be available for visitors. Anyone can use it to intervene and leave their mark.
Ingrid Kerma, June 2011

Pink,
2011

Elsa, an homage by Ingrid Kerma
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‍The plaster body-cast of KERMA’s 92 year old mother Elsa explores her mothers strength and fragility. Both the surface and edges of the material seem torn and fragile, and although her mother - Elsa - is shown to be on crutches and can no longer dance, there is a tremendous physical strength that is communicated. ELSA was born in Narwa, Estonia on09.03.1914. She came to Germany in 1938/39. None of her relatives survived Stalin’s purges. Elsa lives independently in Berlin. Accompanying the sculpture are two series of photographs;One in black and white from 1973shows her mother dancing with her granddaughter in the garden with joy and laughter in her face, and the other is a series of portraits from 2006. Especially for the London ArtFair KERMA produced a DVD of her mother’s extraordinary impressive face. These images show her mothers life – force, her humour and are a celebration of her and her qualities.

Helen DeWITT writes – I love that work. Your mother does these extraordinary things with her body, there is this flesh that is completely outside the commodification of bodies that we live with, and then there are the things she sews together for her body -- so there is something very powerful about this work, something that is hard to capture in words, about the way the medium produces shells of that body in a substance that is, of course, so radically different from flesh, and the work you had to go through to get it, persuading the possessor, the inhabitant of this flesh to permit the flesh to have a cast on this or that portion of the solid, to submit to the discomfort, and the final piece, its fragmentation, its assemblage from parts, is itself a manifestation of what it is to inhabit the flesh, to have casts put on the flesh. I like this. It's exactly the opposite of what Lucien Freud does, where he subjects people to intolerable expanses of boredom, of discomfort, and the discomfort of the sitter is not permitted to affect the painting, to be seen in the painting.

Elsa and elsa,
2016

Homeless,
2021

Crash landing,
2021

BIOGRAPHY
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Born in Eberswalde, Germany
1972-76 – BA,1st class Honours, Fine Art Reading University
Owen Ridley Prize, Reading University
Greater London Arts Board Award
Teaching includes Central St Martins’s, London University, Reading University, Falmouth School of Art, Royal Academy Schools, London
1990-92 – MA, Goldsmith's College, London University
1998 Fellowship, Schloss Wiepersdorf, Germany
Exhibitions since 1975 in Germany, Zurich, London, USA, Canada, Poland
Represented in international Collections
Lives and works in Berlin and London

EXHIBITIONS SELECTION

2008
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Impromptu, Broadbent, London (solo)
Retrospective, Ambassador’s Residence German Embassy London

2006

The Irresistible Force, joint exhibition with Kate Palmer, Broadbent,

2005

Chisenhale Open Studio Exhibition, Chisenhale Studios, London
Art 2005, London Art Fair
3Painters, Guarda, Porto, Portugal
Blushing Brides, solo exhibition, Broadbent Gallery, London
Kerma Paintings, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt/Oder

2003

Art 2003, London
‘Tricolore’ (Kerma, Imhof, Imker), Galerie am Dom, Brandenburg, Germany,‘From the Archives’, Broadbent, LondonSwiss Embassy, (Kerma, Imhof, Imker), London2002‘Unbounded’, solo show, Broadbent Gallery, London
‘One+One=3’ (Imker, Imhof, Kerma), Galerie M, Berlin
‘Imker’ (with Pierre Imhof), Phoenix Arts Centre, Brighton

2002
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Art 2002, London

2001‘
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Vermilion 2’, solo show, Broadbent Gallery London,
Art 2001, London

2000
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Art 2000, London
‘Imker’ (with Pierre Imhof), 97-99 Sclater Street, London
‘Portraits’, Klostergalerie, Zehdenick, Germany
‘Paradiso’, Klostergalerie, Neuzelle, Germany
Group show & symposium, Bahnhof Gusow, Germany

1999
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‘Vermilion’, solo show, Broadbent at the Curwen Gallery, London

1998
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‘Acht Kunstandachten’, Berliner Dom, Berlin
Solo show, Schloss Wiepersdorf, Germany
Group show (with Sally Heywood and Peter Griffin), Broadbent at the New Burlington Galleries, London

1997
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‘Farbfelder, Farbräume’, solo show, Technical University, Berlin
‘Quellen der Freiheit (Berlin-Wroclaw)’, Wroclaw, Poland

1996
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‘Quaternio’ (group show with Woisnitza, Laszeanu, Ben Menahim), Galerie im Turm, Berlin
Solo show, Klinikum, Brandenburg, Germany
Two-person show with Erika Stürmer-Alex, Galerie B, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt/ Oder
‘Das Magische Quadrat’, solo show, Klostergalerie, Zehdenick, Germany
‘Terra, Erde, Earth’ (group show with Marlene Almeida and Erika Strumer-Alex), Nikolaisaal, Potsdam

1995
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‘Interior’ (two-person show with Kathleen Mullaniff), Bedford Gallery, London
Solo show, Galerie M, Berlin
‘Von Meditation zu Expression’, Galerie am Straussberger Platz, Berlin
‘Imker’ (with Pierre Imhof), Galerie Ursula Rövekamp, Zürich

1994
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Solo show, Kleine Galerie, Eberswalde, Germany
‘Zeichen in der Landschaft’, group show, Kesselhaus Kulturbrauerei, Berlin
‘Works on Paper’, group show, Olinda, Brazil

1993
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Solo show, Galerie Ursula Rövekamp, Zurich
Solo show, Galerie Tallinn, Berlin

1992
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MA Show, Goldsmiths College, London University

1991
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Solo show, Galerie Ursula Rövekamp, Zurich
‘Lets Us Have Our Meaning Back’, group show, Goldsmiths Gallery, London

1990
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Solo show, Galerie Unter den Linden, Berlin, DDR

1987
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Whitechapel Open, Whitechapel Gallery, London
Solo show, Chisenhale Gallery, London
Solo show, Richard Pomeroy Gallery, London

1986
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Whitechapel Open, Whitechapel Gallery, London
‘New Acquaintances’, group show, Fabian Carlsson Gallery, London
Group show, Schloss Pesch, Düsseldorf, Germany

1985
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‘Thirty London Painters’, Royal Academy, London
‘The Last Wapping Show’, Wapping Studios, London

1983
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‘Pagan Echoes’, works selected by Waldemar Januczak, Riverside Studios, London

1982
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Hayward Annual, Hayward Gallery, London
‘Small Paintings’, Arts Council Touring Exhibition, selected by Tim Hilton
Solo show, Air Gallery, London

1981
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Whitechapel Open, Whitechapel Gallery, London

1979
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‘Recent Works by Young British Painters’, University of Texas at Dallas, USA
Solo show, Air Gallery, London
Group show, Penwith Gallery, St Ives 1978‘A Free Hand’, Arts Council Touring Exhibition, selected by William PackerStowell’s Trophy, Royal Academy, London

1976
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John Moore's 10, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

1975
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New Contemporaries, Camden Arts Centre, London
Northern Young Contemporaries, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN

‍Hayward Gallery, London
Arts Council of Great Britain
Portsmouth City Art Gallery
Reading University
Arthur Anderson Collection, London
The Economist, London

TEXTS
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Out of the blue
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The announcement of a new show, by an artist one knows well, produces a set of expectations, which are usually broadly met. The work has moved on of course, though by small increments. The meeting of one’s expectations when entering the gallery has something comforting and soothing about it. You are confronted with old acquaintances, almost friends, so much so, that you immediately feel competent to judge and comment on the assembled work.

Every now and then, without much prior notice, we come up on a body of work, which totally confounds us and produces in us the thrill of the new. Ingrid Kerma’s last two shows at Broadbent’s were part of an ongoing exploration of blue, of infinity.

The works were minimal, whilst at the same time producing in the viewer a sensory overload. The hit was instantaneous, the whoa factor intense. What could possibly follow this type of work? Would Kerma continue on the same path, but how? It seemed all said and done; the next step could only be towards total dissolution into infinity.

Of course, I should perhaps mention that I am one of the people who ought to know Ingrid’s work very well. For over ten years, until very recently, my studio was adjacent to hers and my visits there very frequent. What’s more, we have done collaborative works, painting at the same time on the very same canvases, for ten years. I therefore felt quite confident in predicting the changes in her work, until I stepped into her studio to take a look at her blushing Brides that is. I was knocked for six. I encountered a body of work created very recently, a group of painting stripped bare, quiet and self-possessed, and not a single pigment of ultramarine or cobalt blue insight. I felt I had stumbled on a new artist nobody had seen before me.

The individual paintings in this wedding party do not rely on their dress to dazzle; they quietly worm their way, almost naked, into our consciousness. If you do not give them time they will not impress you. No pyrotechnics or lush mysterious textures. Often, large parts of the grounded canvas are left untouched, only blush is applied and a few charcoal lines loosely frame the fields of subtle hues. This kind of painting demands great confidence and above all the discipline to do without the many visual devices in a seasoned painter’s box of tricks.

Of course Ingrid Kerma’s concerns, her quest, may not have changed at all, but the means of expression have altered very much. What was once radiating full blast, with its luxurious, velvety textures has now been divested of all dressiness. Stripped bare, some may be blushing ever so slightly but the assembled guests at the feast triumphantly testify to the power of change.

Pierre Imhof, London October 2005

‍An Afternoon in Prussian Blue – A Visit to Ingrid Kerma’s Studio

‍I come into the studio, whose floor is scattered with blue paint, slip on the shoes provided and enter the field of action. In the middle of the space is a table crowded with blue paint, jars of blue pigment, solvents and brushes. Then my gaze travels to the paintings on the wall: they open the studio onto infinite spaces.

Ingrid Kerma says it is now four years since she started painting only with blue, and now she can’t get away from the colour. The hint of impatience in her voice suggests she would rather leave the blue behind. “It’s time I stopped using it, but blue won’t let you go. For me it’s the colour of the universe, of infinity. It draws you into the depths.

’The canvasses in her studio, some big, some small, testify to her ongoing engagement with the basic elements of painting – matter, colour, light and space – and the barest glance shows that the principle of her art is one of reduction and simplification. “She concentrates on the materiality of paint...in mixing, layering and scraping back...in confining, repeating and exploring the manifold interactions of colour, line and form, she finds a ritual whose object is the pursuit of truth.” (Badstübner-Gröger, “Ingrid Kerma,” exhibition catalogue, Berlin, 1997).

In these canvasses one finds again and again two principles underlying the sense of infinite space: the free movement and development of the paint on the surface; and its containment through squares and horizontal and vertical stripes. The tension between these two elements generates an expansive spatiality confined by tectonic elements that give the paintings a firm framework. She says herself that they need such a scaffolding if they are not to dissolve away to nothing; there has to be a certain sense of confinement beyond which infinity can become palpable.

This work on and with the material is one of the essential features of her creative process. She works it over and over until something emerges into existence, a process that is not entirely under her control, because the material develops its own dynamic. It sounds almost as if she has to tame it. She shows me, as an example, an unfinished painting in Prussian Blue. The surface looks flat and lifeless compared to the finished paintings. She describes the struggle it is to find right the proportion of pigment to medium. “When wet the mixture is almost black, and the colour only becomes visible when it has dried. So there is an element of magic involved. You’re practically working in the dark, and often enough, when the surface hasn’t the right velvety quality, or the right hue, I have to scrape it off and start again. For me it’s like a miracle when it works out.” In working, though, she encounters a dilemma: “I’m working with matter, but at the same time I want to transcend it, to reach something beyond the material.” It’s evident that the spiritual is a major theme in Kerma’s work, through which she seeks to accede to the realm of the inexpressible, the unpicturable.

The environment in which she works also plays an important role. This is very clear in a big, tall painting in the studio, which gains its strength from a decidedly fluid structure that has no recourse to geometry. She tells me she painted it as part of a project in the Oder marshes north of Berlin, where the force of the landscape made it impossible for her to work with geometrical forms.Light too is of enormous importance, and she explains the difference between the sharp, clear light ofBerlin and the more diffuse light of London, where she has chosen to live. The light appears too in her paintings: it is almost as if the colour in her paintings is lit from within, and that within them is a hidden truth.

IMKER Ausstellung

Im Frühjar 2000, findet in der ”97-99” Galerie in der Sclater Street in Osten von London eine IMKER Einzelausstellung statt. IMKER ist eine Zusammenarbeit zweier Künstler, des Schweizers Pierre Gottfried Imhof und der Deutschen Ingrid Kerma. Imhof lebt zur Zeit in London und Kerma ist in Berlin tätig. Beide Künstler sind Maler und arbeiten freiberuflich an ihren eigenen Arbeiten völlig unabhängig voneinander.

1994 begannen sie jedoch auch, zusammen zu malen. Imker (gebildet aus der ersten Silbe der beiden Namen) ist die Unterschrift, mit welcher sie diese Zusammenarbeit zeichnen. Kerma und Imhof verstehen IMKER als völlig unabhängige/n KünstlerIn, ein Dialog zwischen zwei Ländernund deren Kultur, zwischen einem schwulen Mann und einer Frau, zwischen zwei Generationen (Kerma war Imhofs Professorin an der Kunstakademie in London).

Die Werke werden von beiden MalerInnen gleichzeitig bearbeitet, und die Bilder, die daraus entstehen, sind ersichtlich mehr als die Summe beider KünstlerInnen und unterscheiden sich merklich von Kerma und Imhof‘s individuellen Arbeiten. Durch diesen künstlerischen Prozeß werden auch Fragen zu Identität und Urheberschaft gestellt. Diese Ausstellung ist die erste, die IMKER in London zeigt, und sie wird im Jahr 2001 nach Berlin in die Galerie ”M” übersiedeln.

Als Begleitung zur Ausstellung wird ein dreisprachiger Katalog veröffentlicht werden (dt., engl., franz.) mit Fotos von den gezeigten Arbeiten und zwei Texten. Der Erste ist ein IMKER Interview von Matthew Collings (Autor, Kunstkritiker und Fernsehpersönlichkeit(It hurts: New York Art from Warhol to Now; Blimey!; This is Modern Art; Moderator der ”Late Show”, BBC2; This is Modern Art, Channel 4). Der Zweite ist ein Essay von dem Autor und Kunstkritiker Adrian Rifkin, Professor für Kunst Theorie an der Middlesex University (Ingres, Then and Now; Photogenic Painting - Gérard Fromanger; Street Noises).

Pierre Gottfried Imhof, London Mai 2000

BIOGRAPHY‍

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BIOGRAPHY
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TEXTS
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