For our column “leading artists” we have chosen to talk about Agnes Scherer who has recently gained attention at Art Basel Paris, let’s see the reasons below.
The Biography and the research of Agnes Scherer
She was born in 1985 in Lohr am Main, Germany. She lives and works between Salzburg and Berlin. She studied painting at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf with Peter Doig and Enrico David, and she is a professor of painting at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. Scherer is a cultured and aware artist. Her work effortlessly spans techniques and media – canvas, paper, papier-mâché; marker, painting, sculpture, installation, performance, music. This versatility responds to a skill that astonishes, especially when observing the progress of her research over the years. With each new exhibition, Agnes Scherer matures technically and never appears predictable in the themes she addresses. Sentimental relationships and stereotypes, arm wrestling between the people and the organs of power, abuses and manipulations, mechanisms inherent in the socio-political system, emblematic events in history and their reevaluation through the lenses of current events. The artist investigates technology and its consequences, beyond the benefits: dissociation from reality and apathy.
The work of Agnes Scherer
In the course of her artistic practice, Agnes Scherer explores the power relations and the psychologies underlying hegemonic mechanisms. Drawing heavily from sources in art history, anthropology, and cultural history, Scherer subverts, through the device of artistic expression, the communication strategies usually linked to the consolidation of power. In particular, she questions the venues of contemporary art dissemination as she considers them not immune to capitalistic and market dynamics. She sees art galleries as
“places of entertainment that produce a sweet coercion”.
The focus of his work criticizes industrialization not as a historical era but as a metaphor for a process that leads man to pursue only the logics of profit. The artist thus constructs device sculptures that help him communicate his thoughts, transforming them into a fairy-tale story-telling that unfolds, however, around iconic moments in the history of man.
Some works and installations by Agnes Scherer. Strawfires
For the festival “Curated by” of Untold Narratives, the exhibition Strawfires at the gallery Meyer Kainer, Vienna (September 17 – November 2, 2024) – is a scenographic installation, composed of pictorial and sculptural elements. The protagonist is Maria Antonietta. The paintings by Agnes Scherer depict the queen in the guise of a peasant; in the installation, there are baskets of eggs and guillotines repeated one behind the other, in a mise-en-abyme.
Woe and Awe, the exhibition at Sadie Coles
For the first exhibition at Sadie Coles H.Q. (London) paintings, sculptures, and handmade dioramas converge in an installation and performance spectacle. The central work is a paper foldable. It is a transformable folder equipped with folds, flaps, levers, and rods. The pages are manually lifted by the artist and some performers. The three-dimensional forms create a complex staging, almost like a theatrical backdrop. The work is inspired by the “pop-up” books of the Seventies by John Byrne, made even larger.
The diorama depicts some cases in the history of Western society where creativity and the spirit of curiosity have been co-opted for industry. From a beached whale, oil for lamps is obtained, and these lamps illuminate workers who work at night to produce alarm clocks. Two inventors create a swan with automatic mechanisms…in a succession of cause-and-effect chains that feed the machine of Capitalism. Woe and Awe means, in fact, “Guai e dolori”.
The exhibition in California by Agnes Scherer
For the exhibition in Los Angeles, organized by Page (NYC) in collaboration with the local gallery Bel Ami (which hosted the exhibition), Agnes displayed works resulting from the Californian residency. The works are on paper: layered collage and cut-out crafted with graphite, colored pencils, watercolors, and ink. In the center of the gallery, there is a sculpture in the shape of a kite that accommodates a reclining figure.
The artist’s bed and the trophy woman in courtly love
The 2022 work Trousseau dérangé 1 (disturbo della dote 1) was exhibited as part of the exhibition Savoir Vivre at the Chertlüdde Gallery in Berlin, February 16 – March 28, 2024. It mimics the artist’s own bed and gathers the mementos of a bride whose identity we do not know: parts of a dress, gloves, a face-mask, and locks of hair. The ambiguity revolves around the nature of this object… does it want to be a bridal bed or a reliquary? Is marriage a blessing or a curse?
Among the decorations, one notices a seemingly illogical mix of references, from St. Nicholas to a detail from The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. The exhibition concludes with papier-mâché sculptures resembling puppets. They evoke a medieval tournament and allude to the persistence of “courtly love” in contemporary times. The woman is often still perceived as an object of desire, a trophy to be won, while the martial challenge is synonymous with toxic masculinity.
Two knights on horseback clash with their lances while twelve court ladies are in the stands watching the fight. The female spectators have hollowed irises, so their gaze falls into the void. In the background, there is a drawing where some women are feeding geese with a funnel for foie gras.
Conversation with Agnes Scherer
Why do you think your work was so under the radar at Art Basel Paris?
I imagine that the bed stood out because it is made of paper and has a more vulnerable presence compared to the works displayed at an art fair. Sometimes vulnerability increases presence. But there is also something hypnotic about the canopy bed… its shape and its symbolic quality. Perhaps that is why kings used it in reception halls.
Do you create works on paper because you want to make them more ephemeral, in order to counteract the market expectations?
I work a lot with canvas, but you are right to claim that I am a lover of paper. However, I do not consider paper an ephemeral material. Today we still have many works on paper that were created 500 years ago. But it is true: a paper sculpture is not immediately perceived as a collectible asset, even though it fundamentally is. Personally, I appreciate the fact that this involves a different quality in the perception of the artwork.
Are you preparing a new exhibition? What concept will it embrace and where will it be?
Some of my projects for 2025 and 2026 have yet to be officially announced by the hosting institutions, but I can say that I have received invitations of which I feel very honored. For now, this is what I can share: with the gallery Chertlüdde (Berlin) I will be represented in one of the new “vetrine” of Art Basel – a new format with which I can’t wait to play. In the fall, I will have the opportunity to present a solo exhibition at Sans Titre in Paris.
What are the topics that are most important to you at this moment?
It is difficult to adapt to the altered reality in which we find ourselves following the recent political changes. I find myself contemplating other sources compared to the past. Artists who have found a way to continue working in critical times, like Goya. Even the current exhibition of Rudolf Wacker at the Leopold Museum in Vienna seems pertinent to me. Especially his depictions of Christ and other saints without arms and without hands continue to resonate within me.
She has collaborated for many years with art magazines such as Artribune, XIBT Contemporary, ArtApp, Insideart and Espoarte, preferring contemporary art in its many facets and media drifts.
