TONI SCHMALE SUPEREGO

Toni Schmale, who works with the formats of drawing, photography, video, performance and objects, addresses and criticises existing social power relations and gender roles in her art. The artist’s formal vocabulary and work titles make reference to gender and sexuality, fetish and sports. By transferring normative associations, she shifts contexts and succeeds in retaining a performative element in seemingly rigid objects.

The exhibition at the nGbK will predominantly feature sculptures. Schmale precisely worked on the objects made of concrete and steel, polishing or varnishing their surfaces. While her earlier works made a more direct reference to bodies, body parts and corporeality, Schmale’s sculptural pieces are abstracter and cooler, although they transport gender-political utopias and queer identities in an equally radical way, not least through the titles. Works such as “hafenperle”, whose elements remind one of a bench or a rowing machine, as well as other works from the series titled “fuhrpark. was das / der neue gefährt sein kann” project images of bodily exhaustion on several levels. The artworks seem to invite the visitors to interact, provoking a physical association with sports equipment or sex toys, but also the urge to touch the perfectly processed surfaces – a seduction to be resisted.

In conjunction with the exhibition a publication (German/English) will appear in the publishing house nGbK - with text contributions by Silvia Eiblmayr, Christin Lahr and Stefanie Seibold.
ISBN: 978-3-938515-61-7