ESTHER KLÄS : How to Imagine Difference, September 6 - October 19, 2024

Esther Kläs

How to Imagine Difference

September 6 - October 19, 2024

CPM Gallery is pleased to announce its exhibition of recent works by Esther Kläs, entitled How to Imagine Difference. This is the artist’s first solo show with the gallery. The opening reception will be on Friday, September 6, from 6 - 8 pm and the exhibition will run through October 19, 2024.

Esther Kläs’s sculptures occupy a position between inner experience and external reality, heightening the sensation of objects and bodies in space. Intuition, imagination, and poetry often inform how Kläs works with found objects, fabricated elements, and traditional art materials.

This exhibition will include three works that incorporate found materials—a marble slab, a steel ring, and a rusted metal pipe. These objects are combined with pink, blue, and green neon elements designed by the artist. The play between the neon and the natural and artificial light of the gallery engages with the wall, the floor, and the ceiling.

As you enter the gallery, the large wall to the left will display a hanging sculpture consisting of thin ceramic forms that the artist worked by hand and glazed with muted greens and pinks. These pieces were assembled together with metal wire into a tapestry-like pattern.

There will also be text based mono prints stemming from writings that describe the initial thought process for the making of this exhibition.

Esther Kläs (b. 1981, Mainz, Germany) graduated from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (2007) and received an MFA from Hunter College, New York (2010). She currently lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. Museum exhibitions include The subtle interplay between the I and the me, Kolumba Museum, Cologne, Germany (2021); Esther Kläs: Maybe it can be different, Fondazione Giuliani, Rome, Italy (2020); Esther Kläs: Start, Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel (2019); Proof of Life, Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, Bremen, Germany (2018); Esther Kläs: ola/wave, Proyecto AMIL, Lima, Peru (2017-2018); Esther Kläs: Our Reality, Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania, Italy (2015-2016); Whatness, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany (2015); Drawing Redefined, deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts (2015); Esther Kläs: Girare Con Te, Marino Marini Museum, Florence, Italy (2014); Esther Kläs: Better Energy, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York (2012).

Public collections include: Kolumba, Cologne, Germany; Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany; Maxxi National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome, Italy; Collection of the Federal Estate of Germany; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel.

Publications include: Esther Kläs: clouds. Published by Solo Press (2024); Days like this Kiss. Kolumba, Cologne (2020); Esther Kläs: Start. The Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv,(2020); Esther Kläs: ola/wave. Proyecto AMIL. Lima (2018); BET WEEN.: Peter Blum Edition (2016); Whatness: Kunsthalle Bielefeld (2015); Not Now: Peter Blum Edition, NY (2014); Palomar. New: Peter Blum Edition, NY (2013).