Experimenting with material as well as with the body is the point of departure and defines the artistic work of Alexandra Bircken (*1967, lives in Cologne). Her sculptural works are of different, often contrasting nature: plaster models, wax, fragments of store window mannequins and clothing that are used like body parts, as well as structures compacted with wool are woven together to produce set pieces. Bircken’s works stand out due to their auratically charged material presence.

Figurative works are placed in relation to machines as apparatuses or instruments of power created by human beings. The claim of domination or protection suggested by motorcycle gear, motorcycle wheels, or weapons is deconstructed by means of traces of injury and cutting open objects.

Bircken’s work began with the store “Alex” (Cologne) in 2003. She had previously trained as a fashion designer at St. Martin’s College in London, where she taught for a long time and made a name for herself with her “Faridi” label. Her early works, which can be situated at the interface between fashion and art, will be integrated into the exhibition at the Kunstverein Hannover for the first time and supplemented by site-specific interventions that dissolve the border between the “worlds.”

Previous exhibitions (selection): Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2014), The Hepworth Wakefield (2014), Kunstverein in Hamburg (2012), Studio Voltaire, London (2011). The exhibition at the Kunstverein Hannover will subsequently be presented in altered form at the Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach.