UNDER CONSTRUCTION: NEW ACQUISITIONS FOR THE NATIONALGALERIE’S COLLECTION

Ever since the institution was founded in 1861, the collection of the Nationalgalerie has continually been expanded to include contemporary works from each passing era. The collection has been “under reconstruction” since the exhibition and research project Hello World: Revising a Collection (2018), which reflected on the political and cultural ramifications of the Nationalgalerie’s approach to collecting, and called for non-Western art movements and transcultural approaches to be incorporated into the museum’s practices and collections.

In a presentation of selected new acquisitions, which since 2005 have been made possible in great part thanks to the support of the Stiftung des Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie für zeitgenössische Kunst, the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin is showing works by international artists in various media, including painting, installation, sculpture, video and works on paper.

Through their different approaches, aesthetics, themes and reference points, these works influence how we look at both past and present, while evolving the collection and challenging and negotiating its function as the identity of the museum. Over the course of the exhibition, audiences will be able to see how these works are able to constantly produce new readings, with the museum serving as the site of a lively process of interrogation and interpretation.

Mariela Scafati, Argentine artist represented by the Isla Flotante gallery, participates in this exhibition with  three works, two of which are recent acquisitions of the Nationalgalerie: “Pienso en tu pelo” (I think of your hair), composed of 14 canvases painted in blue, whose dimensions correspond to the real dimensions of a human body that are hinged and tied with the Japanese technique of shibari, hanging from the ceiling in a state of suspension; and “Paisaje invertido” (Inverted Landscape), aerial installation of monochromes in different shades of blue, suspended from the ceiling and tied with ropes and pulleys that give movement to each of the paintings, the height of which can be modified by the artist.

Accompanying these two works is the installation "Algo se rompio, 2011 - Windows - 2021" (Something Broke: 2011 – Windows – 2021), on loan from the Oxenford Collection, composed of 60 monochromatic posters hand-painted by the artist in different shades, ranging from activist red to wild pink, on which she writes different slogans and phrases taken from her social media exchanges and evoking with precision images, sensations and feelings that accompany her active political and social life.

Sacafati was born in 1973, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Lives and works in Buenos Aires.

Queer serigraphist, painter and professor, lives and works in Buenos Aires since 1997 after obtaining a Visual Arts degree from the E.S.A.V in Bahía Blanca. She attended the workshops of Tulio Sagastizábal, Pablo Suárez and Guillermo Kuitca. Since 2010 she works for the C.I.A - Centro de Investigaciones Artísticas (Arts Research Center). Her works are part of the collection of Museo Tamayo, Mexico; NationalGalerie, Berlin; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; MCA - Museum Of Contemporary Art, Chicago; PAM - Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix; MACBA - Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires; MALBA - Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires;

Mariela participates and collaborates in group projects related to serigraphy, education, radio and theatre.

Since 2007, she has been part of Serigrafistas Queer, a non-group that holds annual meetings where slogans are discussed and meshes and stencils are made to be printed in the context of LGBTTTIQ+ pride marches and feminist demonstrations that take place every year in different cities of Argentina. Among other activities, Serigrafistas Queer was invited to participate in Documenta 15 in Kassel, Germany; in the exhibition "graphic explosions, like the wall in the ivy" at the Reina Sofía Museum in Spain; in the Museo Parque de la Memoria and the Museo Nacional del Grabado, in Buenos Aires; and MASP in Sao Paulo.