Blossomnia

2 May - 7 June 2024
Installation Views
Works
Press release

Pablo’s Birthday is pleased to present Blossomnia, the gallery’s 4th solo exhibition
with Thorsten Brinkmann. Known for his expansive installations and self-staging,
Brinkmann’s work gives a new life to found objects and readymades. In a world where
energy sources are scarce, Brinkmann asks we open our eyes and see what is already
there, ready for use. The transformation and reuse of supposedly worthless matter
into unexpected creations is vital to the environmental aspect of Brinkmann’s artistic
practice. Focusing on the reinterpretation of things, Brinkmann’s work exists as a way
of being in an overflowing world of objects that threaten to take on a life of their own.

 

Time and time again Brinkmann engages art historical references, playing freely with
common memory-evoking tropes with sly nods to what signifies “Portrait” or “Still
Life.” Rather than simply reproducing them, the work questions these established
art-historical systems of representation and values. When does something become a
work of art, how does a transformation of values take place?

 

In Brinkmann's work, for example, there are self-presentations without “self,”
“frames” without frames, and “flower still lifes” without flowers. Seemingly worthless
objects blossom into ever new constellations; sleepless and restless, they are in
permanent circulation. On the body, in a still life, as a sculpture, or the image for
corresponding wallpaper. Blossomnia.