Rhea Dillon | Gestural Poethics

In the organizer's words:

EN

Opening: June 14, 2025, 6 pm

Exhibition duration: June 15 - September 7, 2025

Gestural Poethics presents new work by London-born artist, poet and writer Rhea Dillon (b. 1996).

In her practice, Dillon explores the lived experiences of Black individuals and communities. In doing so, she negotiates the existential question of belonging at the intersection of ongoing reflections on racialized histories, structural discrimination and the persistent legacies of colonialism in Western societies and institutions.

Her artistic thinking and research, which takes place across various media - from sculpture and painting to poetry and olfactory work - brings together post-minimalist and conceptual approaches with post-colonial theory and critique. In her sculptures, Dillon confronts materials and objects that are historically linked to colonialism, racism or racist violence and whose levels of meaning she critically transforms through strategies of appropriation and reinterpretation. In doing so, she loosely refers to Gayatri Spivak's concept of "critical reinscription", which is not only about deconstructing hegemonic discourses, but also about rewriting them through displaced repetition and recoding^.2 Through the works shown in this exhibition, Dillon explores the potential of the gestural as a way to break free from the dominance of a Western Cartesian model of the subject - a model that is constituted by self-consciousness and demarcation and has been criticized by Denise Ferreira da Silva as exclusionary and structured by a racist "logic of difference"^.3 In her poems and poetic works, Dillon in turn employs processes of encoding, such as the deliberate omission of individual text passages. In doing so, she draws on techniques found in literary texts by Black women writers such as Toni Morrison - with the aim of opening up spaces of Black intimacy, opacity and resistance: as an aesthetic refusal of a claim to legibility as shaped by dominant (often white) horizons of interpretation^.4 Dillon's work is connected to global decolonial currents and engages with theoretical positions of contemporary authors such as Achille Mbembe, Saidiya Hartman and Stuart Hall - whose book The Fateful Triangle initiated a fundamental revision of central concepts such as identity, "race", nation and ethnicity^.5

The artist is herself a direct descendant of the Windrush Generation - those people who migrated to Britain from the Caribbean in the decades following the Second World War, many of whom still suffer from state discrimination and the denial of citizenship rights - a legacy of ongoing structural inequality.

The Heidelberger Kunstverein is delighted to present Gestural Poethics, Rhea Dillon's first institutional solo exhibition in Germany, opening up a concentrated examination of a central aspect of her multifaceted artistic work.

Curated by Søren Grammel

With the kind support of the City of Heidelberg, the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg and the Baden-Württemberg Foundation.

Notes

1. Image: Rhea Dillon, E R (detail), 2022-2025
2. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak developed the concept of critical reinscription as a strategy not only to deconstruct hegemonic discourses, but also to rewrite them through repetition and recoding. Cf. for example Can the Subaltern Speak? (1988) and A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (1999).
3. In numerous texts, Denise Ferreira da Silva has criticized the Cartesian concept of an autonomous subject - based on its own consciousness - as a colonial and racialized construction. Key texts on this include Toward a Global Idea of Race (2007) and On Difference Without Separability (2016).
4. Toni Morrison uses blanks, omissions and writing for a Black audience as forms of literary self-empowerment. See, for example, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992) and The Site of Memory (1987). Saidiya Hartman reflects on such strategies, particularly in Scenes of Subjection (1997) and Lose Your Mother (2007), in which she criticizes the voyeuristic impulse of archival practices to make everything visible. With her concept of "critical fabulation", on the other hand, she combines archive material with literary imagination - especially where there are gaps, omissions or absences.
5. Stuart Hall, The Fateful Triangle (2017).

----------------

EN

Opening on June 14, 2025, 6 pm

Exhibition runs from June 15 to September 7, 2025

Gestural Poethics presents recent works by the London-born artist, poet, and writer Rhea Dillon (b. 1996).

Her practice engages with the lived experiences of Black individuals and communities, placing the existential question of belonging at the intersection of ongoing reflections on racialized histories, systemic discrimination, and the enduring legacies of colonialism within Western societies and institutions.

Her artistic inquiry, pursued across various media-from sculpture and painting to poetry and olfactive work-draws on post-minimalist and conceptualist approaches, while actively engaging with postcolonial theory and critique. In her sculptures, Dillon confronts materials historically associated with colonialism, racism, or racial violence-reworking their charged legacies through strategies of appropriation and reinterpretation. In doing so, they loosely draw on Gayatri Spivak's concept of "critical reinscription," not merely imbuing these materials with new meaning, but transforming their symbolic register and destabilizing their historical connotations^.2 Through the artworks in this exhibition, she explores the potential of the gestural as a means of becoming unhinged from the dominance of a Western model of subjectivity, constituted through self-consciousness and separation, and critiqued by Denise Ferreira da Silva for being exclusionary and structured by racialized logics of difference^.3 And in her poetic works and poems, Dillon implements processes of encryption such as the omission of certain passages of text. With this, she draws on techniques that are sometimes used in literary texts by Black writers such as Toni Morrison, and which can be understood as a strategy of creating spaces of Black intimacy, opacity, and resistance - an aesthetic refusal to conform to the expectations of legibility shaped by dominant (often white) interpretive frameworks^.4

Dillon's work relates to broader currents of global decolonization and enters into dialogue with the theories of contemporary authors such as Achille Mbembe, Saidiya Hartman and Stuart Hall, whose book "The Fateful Triangle" initiated a major rethinking of the concepts of identity, race, nation, and ethnicity^.5 The artist is herself a descendant of the Windrush Generation-people who migrated to Britain from the Caribbean in the decades after the Second World War, many of whom have faced systemic state discrimination and the denial of citizenship rights-harsh legacies that persist into the present.

The Heidelberger Kunstverein is pleased to present Gestural Poethics, Rhea Dillon's first institutional solo exhibition in Germany, offering a focused engagement with a central strand of her multifaceted artistic practice.

Curated by Søren Grammel

With the kind support of the City of Heidelberg, the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts and the Baden-Württemberg Foundation.

Notes

1. Image: Rhea Dillon, E R (Detail), 2022-2025
2. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak developed the concept of critical reinscription, as a strategy aimed not only at deconstructing hegemonic discourse but also at rewriting it through repetition and recoding. Cf. for example Can the Subaltern Speak? (1988) and A Critique of Postcolonial Reason (1999).
3. Denise Ferreira da Silva has written numerous texts criticising the Cartesian idea of an autonomous subject, grounded through its own consciousness, as a colonial and racialized construction. Key texts here include Toward a Global Idea of Race (2007) and On Difference Without Separability (2016).
4. Toni Morrison uses targeted gaps in narrative - silence, omission and writing for a Black audience - as a form of literary self-empowerment. Cf. for example Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (1992) and The Site of Memory (1987). Saidiya Hartman reflects on such strategies-particularly in Scenes of Subjection (1997) and Lose Your Mother (2007)-and critiques the voyeuristic impulse within archival practices to make everything visible. In her concept of "critical fabulation", she combines archival material with literary imagination-especially where gaps, omissions or absences persist.
5. Stuart Hall, The Fateful Triangle (2017).

Price information:

Members and pupils free Reduced € 3 Regular € 5