Isabella Fürnkäs - The Loop
1 December 2018—9 February 2019
Opening: Saturday, 1 December, 6—9 pm

After-Party:
Lukas Heerich (DJ)
Luki von der Gracht & Friends (Concert)
Maryisonacid & Dauwd (DJ)
Spiel- & Billardhalle, Leipziger Str. 58, 10117 Berlin
11 pm

The loop. The bow. In the hair, in the heart, a knot. Loops. Loops describe circles, chain links around the neck, caught in space. Figurines, fearlessly spinning pirouettes, create wheels and loops, and nothing is hopeless, the path simply leads in turns. In a circle, you meet again. And again. And again. We do not need mirrors, gates, doors or windows to change or to develop. A course, a racetrack, that we call our own. In the circle: leading, overtaking, falling back. Or to be overtaken, moving side by side, looking straight ahead. Turning to each other, and looking. The time you spend is not lost, nor used up. That which the linear cuts, comes again in the circle, remains faithful in constant change, just like you.

Isabella Fürnkäs works with a wide variety of media and materials; drawing or a form of painting based on a graphic approach is always there. She uses space as a canvas, throws things into it, awakens it to life: in the context of togetherness and confronting the other, she gives a subjectivity to the individual object; things play around with each other, gather together, dissolve again, become charged, and make the white cube resonate. Figurative sculptures continue as paintings on the walls, the painting continues in drawings, the drawing continues in the sculptures. Together they describe circular movements.

At ITALIC, Fürnkäs presents a compilation of graphic works from the last ten years; in a small format framed behind Plexiglas they face two mannequins facing each other. In Fürnkäs‘ work, the viewer regularly encounters human-like figures, magnificently draped in colors and patterns, nurtured by her examination of Japanese theater and craftsmanship; with the suggestion of growing from painting, they populate spaces. In a limp, melting state, they splash colorfully over the floor and become paintings again. In her work for ITALIC, she has withheld this color, speaking of „white“ and „beige“. The sculptures are delicately chiselled and decorated with fine fabrics. In a nonchalant gesture, the previous lavish colorfulness is outshone by a new elegance, its expression has become slightly darker. Where wistful moments were always visible in her work, there are now also motifs of pain. The dolls converse – in mutual silence – with the help of two media players on the tile wall. Endless.

Isabella Fürnkäs is based in Düsseldorf and Berlin. Two cities of many, it is less about restlessness than movement. Isabella Fürnkäs was born in Tokyo in 1988 and lived there until she was nineteen. Afterwards, in quick succession, she spent time in Zurich, Vienna, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Berlin, Paris, and studied at these places. She is a seeker. But more than that she is a finder, an inventor, and certainly a collector. She revisits these cities over and over again, commuting, in circular movements. The loop. The fact that this is part of her way of working and part of her work could be read biographically. Or the biography is a description of a decision, an idea of life, how one could lead it, and how she wants to lead hers. Endlessly. In a loop. In a circle. In an oval.

Text: Andreas Reihse

Isabella Fürnkäs, The Loop, Installation view, 2018/19, Italic Berlin