Asterism (After Grete Stern)
Courtesy the artist
Collection
Collaged giclée print on rag paper
Composition: 37.2 x 45.7 cm Sheet: 39.3 x 47.8 cm
Andrea Geyer’s work is both deeply historical and aptly present. Throughout much of her practice she focuses on under-documented women, or those who identify as women, in the arts, connecting history, historical movements, ideologies, presence, and absence. Working across a variety of media, including video, photography, collage, painting, and the written word, she has exhibited extensively in Europe and the US.
In her “Asterism” series, she hones her focus on women who contributed to the Bauhaus. In these elegant assemblages, Geyer has deconstructed portraits of Gertrud Arndt, Lucia Moholy, Grete Stern, and Anni Albers, based on Josef Albers' “Structural Constellations,” an approach that used two key aspects: economy and perceptual ambiguity. In Albers' – and Geyer’s – series, the two dimensional collages are renderings of three dimensional objects and give rise to the feeling of being viewed from more than one perspective at the same time, calling for continuous reassessment. The roles of the woman seen in “Asterism” and their impact on the Bauhaus movement similarly calls for re-examination.
– Alicia Reuter
* b. 1971, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, lives and works New York City
Composition: 37.2 x 45.7 cm Sheet: 39.3 x 47.8 cm
Andrea Geyer’s work is both deeply historical and aptly present. Throughout much of her practice she focuses on under-documented women, or those who identify as women, in the arts, connecting history, historical movements, ideologies, presence, and absence. Working across a variety of media, including video, photography, collage, painting, and the written word, she has exhibited extensively in Europe and the US.
In her “Asterism” series, she hones her focus on women who contributed to the Bauhaus. In these elegant assemblages, Geyer has deconstructed portraits of Gertrud Arndt, Lucia Moholy, Grete Stern, and Anni Albers, based on Josef Albers' “Structural Constellations,” an approach that used two key aspects: economy and perceptual ambiguity. In Albers' – and Geyer’s – series, the two dimensional collages are renderings of three dimensional objects and give rise to the feeling of being viewed from more than one perspective at the same time, calling for continuous reassessment. The roles of the woman seen in “Asterism” and their impact on the Bauhaus movement similarly calls for re-examination.
– Alicia Reuter
* b. 1971, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, lives and works New York City