Texts

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S U S P E N D E D

Dr. Carmen Putschky

A long, transparent fabric hangs down, attached to the ceiling, spreading out in the room, 160 cm wide and 500 cm long. Attached to it are small, light-coloured rectangles of cotton fabric, carelessly applied, some of the corners hanging down a little. This gives them a sculptural effect, playing with light and shadow, not quite visible...

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C A C H E

Harald Theiss, art historian, curator and author

Ambiguity defines the artistic work of Patricia Dreyfus. To this day it remains an almost obsessive and unsparing examination of her own life. Through a surreal vocabulary of forms, she simultaneously reflects omnipresent states of human - mostly female - experiences and insights. The hidden plays a visible role not only formally a visible role. In this context, the title of the exhibition, which can be read in different ways, leads to speculative interpretations. What remains in the textile installation Histoire de ma vie (2018-2022), made up of countless overlaps, is concealed or where does it allow insights? The story of my life, according to the translation, is reminiscent of the autobiographical work of the French writer George Sand. The name is known to be a pseudonym. To this day, it usually serves to conceal identity. The reason was different in Sand's case. With the male name, she adopted the emancipatory habit of speaking of herself in the masculine form...

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Lettre à moi-même

Harald Theiss, art historian, curator and author

Lettre à moi-même is a project in several parts by Patricia Dreyfus, a French artist living in Berlin. It is an almost immeasurable personal cosmos of surrealistic stylistic elements that is manifest throughout her cross-genre work. At the hub of this largely figurative narrative is an autobiographical context. In this way, not only does she offer insights into this context but also provokes unmitigated involvement with it. Questions concerning origins, identity and gender are addressed – yet the focus lies on breaking through and breaking open boundaries, social norms and constraints.

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Von Köpfen, Körpern und anderen Verwandtschaften

Harald Theiss

Modellierte Köpfe, immer wieder: Bodeninstallationen mit unzählig vielen Köpfen, Köpfe hinter Glas arrangiert, wieder andere Köpfe gruppiert und auf einzelne Metallstäbe fixiert - nahezu in Augenhöhe platziert, entwickeln sie mit ihrer Präsenz minimale Körperlichkeiten und Nähe. Mit ihren Köpfen aus Ton oder Bronze schaut Patricia Dreyfus in Köpfe hinein.

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The black Island

Dagrun Hintze

Houses are a recurrent motif in Patricia Dreyfus’s drawings – sometimes in the form of high-rise buildings, elsewhere as simple family homes in the way children paint them. In general, the motif belongs to the thematic complex of “women” or “femininity”. The drawing “Turbulenz-Zone” (Zone of turbulence) shows a naked female figure squatting on top of a somewhat crumpled block of flats; the figure is using the roof of the neighbouring building (which has been skewered by a rocket) as a makeshift tabletop to stand drinks on.

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Publications

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L’Île imaginaire

Schulz und Schulz
2017

“My face is all red, with nothing but an eye, in the forehead. I move through impenetrable fog, a little lost

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Insomnia

Benteli
2011

Being cursed with sleeplessness, Emile Cioran wrote, is “an extremely painful experience, a catastrophe. But it allows you to understand things that the others cannot understand: sleeplessness puts you outside the living’s domain, outside humanity.”

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Signes de têtes

Mendibourne
1996

…the infinite ensemble of heads creates a vast family of people all relaying their thoughts to one another like so many sparks required to arm Prometheus.

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