Anne Wenzel
Portfolio
The Netherlands: Akinci, 2018
66 Pages
The Netherlands-dwelling ceramic artist Anne Wenzel ‘s catalog with Akinci Gallery (The Netherlands) is now available through cfile.library for free! Click here.
Destruction in general is not an unfamiliar working method for Anne Wenzel: “It is a way to find the balance. I believe there are two sides to everything in life: there is nothing that is only good. There is always a dark side, a less pleasant side.” -Anne Wenzel
Wenzel’s series of ceramic busts is called Under Construction. The title refers to the feminist dimension of the new body of work. The women in the busts are “in the prime of their lives- not young, not old, but Under Construction. They are powerful and classic, eternally combative but damaged as their faces and chests are scarified revealing incised texts of fury and provocation.”
Anne Wenzel, Under Construction (I am my own prophet), 2018, ceramics, metal plinth. Photo courtesy of Akinci Gallery.
Anne Wenzel, Under Construction (Mother of Pearl), 2018, ceramics, metal plinth. Photo courtesy of Akinci Gallery.
Bio: Since 2000, Anne Wenzel has been building an oeuvre of ceramics, fearlessly diverting its tradition into remarkable sculptures with a brutal sense of decay. Drawing her inspiration from art-history, Wenzel is intrigued by the symbolic language behind heroism and violence, and the extravagant spectacle that tends to accompany these subjects. Her sculptures are often described as modern-day Vanitas, subsequently undermining their own heroic aura. When looking at Wenzel’s sculptures of people and animals, is it as if witnessing some horrific event taking place. In contrast, her apocalyptic landscapes show the dreadfully calm remains of an action, rather than the action itself. In her new series of work, Wenzel focuses more on the language that lurks behind the heroism of war memorials. Her monumental florals and wreaths, a universal symbol for celebration and the commemoration of war, are frozen in a state of decay. She unmasks the monument and, through the medium of clay — which she uses unconventionally and without regard to national borders – shows that all ideologies and even personifications of power display identical stylistic and linguistic characteristics. Courtesy Akinci Gallery
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