Karin Sander

de Letizia Ragaglia

In her exhibitions, Karin Sander (b. Bensberg, Germany, 1957) humorously alludes to readymade situations, taking as her theme common cultural scenarios in their institutional and historical contexts. In doing so, she intervenes in established structures, altering them, accentuating certain aspects and circumstances and inviting her public to join in. The supposedly familiar is reconceptualised and becomes the starting point of a process of investigation. The Museion exhibition includes a number of distinctively Karin Sander features. The exhibition begins on the ground floor, in the Museion foyer. Here, visitors are greeted by a work that immediately makes them part of the exhibition. Identities on Display consists of a series of glass lockers, conceived as a cloakroom and to be used by visitors as such. The artist has also intervened in the functional aspects of the building, for example, by reprogramming the slats that regulate the influx of daylight on the façade. At the centre of the exhibition space, on the fourth floor of the museum, Karin Sander has laid down a gigantic carpet with a plan of the exhibition room woven into it. So, visitors can read the various dimensions, as well as walking or even sitting on them. This is how the artist creates scenes in which the visitors themselves become part of the exhibition. Like a kind of ballet, the museum?s glass slats open and close, directing the visitor?s attention, first towards a number of the artist?s previous works and then onto the wonderfully faceted landscape outside. And it is precisely this landscape that is reproduced as a 3D printed model, in the museum?s interior. Exhibition: Museion, Bolzano, Italy (30.05. - 20.09.2020).