Mariechen Danz (* 1980 in Dublin, Ireland) is the recipient of the GASAG Art Prize 2024. The GASAG initiated award, has been presented in cooperation with the Berlinische Galerie since 2010. With the prize the partners honour an outstanding artistic position at the intersection of art, science and technology every two years.
In her artistic practice Mariechen Danz explores methods and models of human knowledge. In installations and performances she combines scientific systems for appropriating and describing the world, with subjective, alternative and magical thinking. The starting point for her artistic research is the human body, which serves as a template for new approaches to communicating or presenting information and knowledge. For her exhibition “edge out” Danz will transform the entrance hall of the Berlinische Galerie into an expansive installation, in which, like an unfolded map the floor and walls are linked by sculptural interventions. The show builds on an extensive visual language of carto-graphy, geology, technology, anatomy and astronomy forged by the artist over the years in her sculptures, performances and videos. Depictions and casts of organs of the human body for example, are a central motif in Danz’s work. In this exhibition they appear sometimes as negative imprints in bricks, as translucent sculptures, or as a shadowplay on the walls. As futuristic fossils they escape time, charting the influence of politics and society on our bodies.
Recent video works add an acoustic component to the space. The artist‘s voice is accompanied by rhythmic, repetitive or spherical sounds made in collaboration with Gediminas Žygus. Her melodious or spoken singing overlays the imagery, which shows details bathed in shadow from the artist’s sculptures and visual compositions. These mark the shifts between micro- and macro-perspectives in Danz’s works, while the voice and sound allude to oral tradition, individual experience and ritual acts. The pictorial systems, objects and symbols in “edge out” establish cross-references and constantly form new associations and connections. This creates a complex multiperspective space, that can be explored as both an abstract mental model and a physically tangible perceptual space. Mariechen Danz places the human body and individual experience at the centre of how we understand the world, revealing knowledge to be a dynamic, somatic and not always explicable process.
Mariechen Danz studied at the University of the Arts in Berlin and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam before obtaining her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Santa Clarita. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at the 16th Istanbul Biennial, the 57th Biennale di Venezia, the High Line in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
- All the explanatory exhibition texts are available in German and English.
- There is no information in Simple German.
- There is no information in German Sign Language.
- Some outreach events are held in or with German Sign Language.
- The exhibition features a video works with sound. It can be heard in all sections of the exhibition. The projections include some fast-changing and intensely bright images.
- Assistive listening is not supported by induction systems or neck loops.
- There is step-free access to the exhibition.
- Most of the exhibits and explanatory texts can be seen and read from a seated position.
- Objects are arranged throughout the space. Some are placed close together or protrude from the wall at various heights.
- There is one seating. Wheelchairs and folding stools can be borrowed free of charge from the cloakroom.
- To protect the works in the exhibition limited use is made of bright illumination. Most of the exhibition texts are designed with strong contrast.
- All the panel texts are available as a large-print brochure that you will find at the entrance to the exhibition.
- The exhibition has a floor guidance system to point the way through a part of the exhibition.
- There are no touch models.
- Do you have any other questions about accessibility?
Andreas Krüger, officer accessibility and inclusion, will be happy to answer them via e-mail krueger@berlinischegalerie.de or via phone +49 (0)30-789 02-832.
