Vernissage "Perplexity II", Corinna Holthusen, 02.05.25, 18-21 Uhr, Gallery Weekend Berlin

In the organizer's words:

02.05.2025 - 07.06.2025 artrelations Gallery Berlin

CORINNA HOLTHUSEN - "PERPLEXITY II" - Gallery Weekend Berlin

Vernissage on 02.05.2025, 18:00 to 21:00.

What is the matrix of beauty and how can it be overcome? The conceptual photographer Corinna Holthusen has been exploring this question for decades. The creation of her portraits has always been characterized by the interplay of digital and analogue work processes. And now, with the partial insertion of AI-generated image elements, she has reached a new level of complexity.

"In her works, the past, present and even the future of human portraits merge and become one," says art critic Thomas Wulffen about Holthusen's art. These images, seemingly decoupled from time and space, are created in a detailed process in which Holthusen meticulously adapts her photographs of faces, bodies, fabrics and dolls to the artificially generated images in several work steps using light and perspective - or vice versa. She sometimes finalizes her works with analogue painting and transparent textures. New, artificial beings and worlds are created from scratch. This seemingly endless, sometimes grotesque superimposition of physiognomies creates a form of irritation for us "corporeal" beings: we are perplexed by the expansion of supposed beauty presented to us - or by its deliberate rupture. Existential questions are evoked, such as: What actually constitutes being human?

The Hamburg-based artist completed her art studies in Florence at the Studio Arts Center International. She later professionalized her passion for photography at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Milan. Since then, Holthusen's art has been shown not only in major German cities but also in many international exhibitions, for example in Amsterdam, Madrid, London, New York and Las Vegas. She has also won awards and prizes such as the Prix de Photographie de Paris, the Kodak Digital Imaging Award and the Lead Award: Generated Image 2000.

"Perplexity II" invites us to free ourselves from rigid body ideals. Using portraits and surrealist collages, Holthusen deconstructs the human body and reassembles it. This results in unusual compositions. Human and animal and background merge. She breaks so-called viewing habits and thus creates a liberating feeling.

artrelations Gallery, Ackerstraße 154, 10115 Berlin, Heike Wendeln, heike@artrelations.de, www.artrelations.de