Esther Kläs: HORIZONTE

Xavier Hufkens is pleased to announce the second exhibition by Esther Kläs titled HORIZONTE. The exhibition’s focus is the horizontal and all spaces surrounding it. A new publication accompanies the exhibition, including an essay by Dutch curator and writer Mark Kremer.

Some observations from the essay by Mark Kremer:

“Esther Kläs belongs to a generation of artists who, compelled by conditions that shape today’s world and how we engage with its complex issues, have taken up the old philosophical question of how matter affects us and how we may affect matter. The backdrop to her practice is a reality in which our natural world is in a state of precariousness; her sculptures and drawings evoke sensations of vulnerability and costliness.”

“Kläs’ oeuvre is primarily a body of work with a direct physical impact, yet in this same oeuvre lives a philosophical impetus. Her art is driven by an urge to explore. The sculptures, made from pigmented aqua resin, come to a space as if it were an unknown landscape in need of discovery. The pieces sit, lean, hang or loiter and they convey their energy to a place. As to her large drawings there is distance, their line configurations could be perceived as meditations on equilibrium, sitting somewhere in between a sketch and a score.”

“The subject of Kläs’ work could be defined as orientation. Her art dwells on mankind and our relationship with the surroundings and it evokes experiences of nature. A sculpture by Esther Kläs does not end at its material limits, it rather suggests the sensation of being doused in a larger energetic field. Every work starts at zero and is realized by following a pattern that does the work. The ‘minimal forms’ which speak up in her work, seem to be inspired by a much larger intuition about the world. Perhaps we could call it ‘anima’, the notion that spirit permeates all things in our reality. In my opinion, Esther Kläs’ art thus attempts to make a new connection between minimalism and animism.”

Esther Kläs (b. 1981, Mainz, Germany) lives and works in Barcelona. Recent exhibitions include ola/wave, Proyecto AMIL, Lima, Peru (2017—2018); Our Reality, Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania, Italy (2015—2016); Whatness, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany (2015); Girare Con Te, Marino Marini Museum, Florence, Italy (2014) and Better Energy, MoMA PS1, NY, USA (2012).

Download Press release