- Source: Paula Doepfner
Paula Doepfner
Paula Doepfner (born in Berlin - July 1980) is a contemporary artist. Her work includes text-based drawings, performances, and objects made of ice, organic matter, and damaged armored glass. She lives and works in Berlin.
Life
Paula Doepfner studied fine arts from 2002 to 2008, at the Universität der Künste Berlin and at the Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London. She studied under Roger Ackling in London and graduated from the masterclass Rebecca Horn in Berlin. She has received numerous prizes and stipends, among others the Hans Platschek prize (2024), the Krull foundation work stipend (2023), the Konrad Adenauer Foundation EHF stipend (2021/22), the work stipend of the Albert Koechlin foundation, Lucerne (2010), and the Else Neumann stipend from the City of Berlin (2008).
Doepfner’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, with institutional solo exhibitions at the Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden (2023), the Akademie der Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (2022), and the Goethe-Institut, Washington, D.C. (2015). She has participated in group exhibitions at institutions including the Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum at the Charité (2023),) the Museum Reinickendorf, Berlin (2022), and the Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne (2013). Her works are held in private and public collections such as the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Leipzig, and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden.
Work
Paula Doepfner’s artistic practice comprises drawings, performances, and objects made of ice, glass, and organic matter. The content of her work is drawn from literary texts and documents relating to human rights abuses and the Holocaust. Her drawings consist of minute script on transparent paper; she writes lines of text in tiny letters (ø = 1 mm) to form textual images. The drawings are based on sketches she makes while observing autopsies and brain surgery at the Charité University Hospital Berlin. The strings of text in her drawings are taken from the Istanbul Protocol, a UN handbook on the investigation and documentation of torture and other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, and from documentary material on the children of Auschwitz. Paula Doepfner combines these documentary texts with literary works by the likes of Anne Carson, Paul Celan, Joyce Mansour and Robert Musil.
For her glass works Paula Doepfner makes color sketches of regions of the brain, transferring them onto the glass, usually large pieces of glass, with pigment and varnish. She uses armored glass from commercial units and luxury buildings that have been damaged during demonstrations. Some of the glass works hang on the wall, others stand in space.
Paula Doepfner’s ice blocks, which weigh up to 500 kg, either melt into metal trays in the gallery space before evaporating, or run off into the ground when exhibited in public space. Inside the blocks Doepfner freezes paper inscribed with texts. The inscribed pieces of paper are frozen into the center of the transparent ice blocks.
For her sound performances Doepfner works together with a musician, usually a double-bass player. The double-bass player plays just one note in microtonal intervals while Doepfner makes sounds with foliage and dried shrubbery.
Paula Doepfner’s works “incorporate the passing of time and reveal internal organic structures. They are always based on human experience.” Her work deals with the “darkest aspects of human existence” and transforms them “into something almost material, physical, something that’s not just symbolic but also a remnant, a trace of something, of language, of life, even her own life. Neither imagery nor poetry, it’s something that has to be regarded forensically, as fact.”
Solo exhibitions (selected)
2023 "Darkness at the break of noon", Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden, Germany
2022 "I went to the crossroads", Akademie der Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Berlin, Germany
2021 "Today and tomorrow, and yesterday, too, the flowers are dyin' like all things do", Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Berlin, Germany
2019 "For the trees to drop" Stiftung St. Matthäus, Berlin, Germany
2018 "Next Time I See You", Galleria Mario Iannelli, Rome, Italy
2017 "Babe, I’ve left you somewhere in the rain", Una Vetrina, Rome, Italy
2016 "Put it right here (or keep it out there)" Kunstverein Reutlingen, Germany
2015 "Take It Right Back" Goethe Institute, Washington, D.C.
2014 "Whatever gets you through the night, it's alright, it's alright", Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin
2014 "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed", Galerie Laurent Mueller, Paris
2013 "Rollin' High And Mighty Traps", S2A, New York; Performance with Steve Whipple
2012 "More than I can hide", Kunstverein Östliches Sauerland, Germany
2011 "But my nerves were kicking", Ionion Center for the Arts, Kefalonia
2011 "Mehr Zeit bedeutet nicht mehr Ewigkeit", Performance with Hakeem Holloway, Berlin Art Junction
2010 "Promessus", Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin
2010 "Fallen", Stadtmühle Willisau, Lucerne
2009 "Im Schlaf ohne Schlaf", St. Johannes Evangelist-Kirche, Berlin; Performance with Gregor Fuhrmann
= Group exhibitions (selected)
=2023: Das Gehirn, Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité, Berlin
2022: Strich um Strich. Zeichnen 2, Galerie ETAGE, Museum Reinickendorf, Berlin
2021: All I Think About Is You, Galerie Georg Nothelfer und Kunstsaele, Berlin
2021: Deceleration, Ausstellung zum Kunstpreis des Hauses am Kleistpark, Berlin
2020: Freitod – Exhibition on the 10th anniversary, Kunstsaele, Berlin
2020: Das Blatt, Curated Affairs und Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Düsseldorf/ Berlin
2019: Der Funke Gottes, Diözesanmuseum Bamberg
2018: Abenteuer Freundschaft, Kunstsaele, Berlin
2018: Marianne-Werefkin-Preis 2018, Kommunale Galerie, Berlin
2017: Lost in Transition, Kunstforum der TU Darmstadt
2017: Berliini – Nastola, Taarasti Art Center, Nastola, Finland
2017: Ubi fracassorium, ibi fuggitorium, artQ13, Rom
2017: On botany, BLOK art space, Istanbul
2016: UM-Festival, Brandenburg
2015: #2, Kunstverein Reutlingen
2015: The vacancy, Temporäres Kunsthaus, Berlin
2014: Ease your window down, Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin
2013: Mono-no-aware, Linden Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne
2013: Real Naturally, Kunsthalle Lana, Meran
2012: Zeichnungen von Bildhauern, Kunstverein Mainz
2012: Plants Talk II, Kunstverein Potsdam
2012: Zeichnungen, Salon Dahlmann, Berlin
2011: Plants Talk, Naturkundliches Museum Witzenhausen
2011: Funkhaus Kunstpreis, Funkhaus, Berlin
2011: Kunstaktien in den Uferhallen, Berlin
2010: glauben, dass…, Shedhalle Tübingen
2010: Leben Lieben Leiden, Kunstverein Celle
2010: AKA Symbol, Forgotten Bar Project, Berlin
2010: Wrong Love, A Foundation, Liverpool
2009: Zeigen, eine Audiotour, Temporäre Kunsthalle, Berlin
2009: Access All Areas, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
2008: Klasse Rebecca Horn, Schloß Liebenberg, Brandenburg
2008: Meisterschülerausstellung, Universität der Künste, Berlin
2005: Chelsea College Studentshow, London
Scholarships and awards
2024 "Hans Platschek Preis für Kunst und Schrift", nominated by Prof. Marion Ackermann
2023 Artist scholarship, Krull Foundation
2021/22 EHF Stipend, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Berlin, Germany
2015 Artist in residence, Goethe Institute, Washington, D.C., USA
2010 Work stipend, Albert Koechlin Foundation, Lucerne, Switzerland
2008/09 Stipend, Elsa-Neumann-Stipendium by City of Berlin, Germany
Public collections
Kupferstichkabinett Berlin (SMB)
Kupferstichkabinett Dresden (SKD)
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum Leipzig
References
External links
http://pauladoepfner.com/
https://www.monopol-magazin.de/landkarten-der-trauer
https://kunststueck.podigee.io/3-folge3-doepfner
