HERE + NOW : Stine Deja, Joshua Citarella, Jenny Brosinski, Jonathan Todryk, Sooyoung Chung, Ant Hamlyn, Paul Weiner, Irati Inoriza, Anna Ehrenstein, Tara Wray, Tahnee Lonsdale, Lisette van Hoogenhuyze, Johan Deckmann, Hiroyuki Hamada, Hannah Sophie Dunkelberg, Trista

Press Release

Pablo’s Birthday is pleased to announce Thorsten Brinkmann’s third Solo Exhibition at the
gallery, "Misstallica & Vaslanten”.

Thorsten Brinkmann has been collecting found objects for than more than 20 years. With
these sediments of modern culture he moves between the genres of photography, sculpture,
performance, and installation art referencing motifs of art history such as still life, portrait, and
landscape, while interrogating the languages they employ. Photographic self-dramatization, in
which the artist functions as an actor, director, and photographer in one, creating images in the
solitude of his studio with a self-timer, is one of his areas of focus.

Wrapped up in used clothing and found objects from everyday life, he transforms himself into
anonymous, sometimes androgynous figures that appear as objects – sculptural figures – that
allude to compositions by old masters.

The photographs are part of the long tradition of self-portraits by artists, but he practically
explodes the accompanying myths by hiding his countenance and emptying them of any
recognizable individuality such that they reference portraiture itself, and thereby the very
question of representation.

In his latest works he began to produce photo-assemblages, were he combines photo-works
with his found objects extending them into the space. With this 3rd dimension he opened a
new chapter in his work. The latest development are material pictures in big glass cases,
which show landscapes done with objects collected in the urban landscape.
Pablo’s Birthday recently featured Brinkmann’s work as a solo presentation at The Armory
Show 2019 in New York. The installation focused on his latest works in a kind of
Gesamtkunstwerk or “total work of art”, in the tradition of Kurt Schwitters - This new exhibition follows in the same vein by painting parts of the wall in combination with artist made wallpaper elements, and installing various objects, the space becomes a conceptual armature
referencing a fictional place from which all these works came. The exhibition will also
showcase a new still-life series titled Vaslanten.

Thorsten Brinkmann was born in Herne, Germany in 1971, and lives and works in Hamburg.
He studied Visual Communication at Kunsthochschule Kassel and Fine Arts at Hochschule für
Bildende Künste, Hamburg. In 2011, Brinkmann received the Finkenwerder Art Prize,
“awarded to artists who have made an extraordinary contribution to contemporary art in
Germany.” Brinkmann has had solo exhibitions in Belgium, Germany, The United States, and
Mexico. His work is represented in museums throughout Europe and was included in Beyond
Borders, The Fifth Beaufort Triennial, Belgium (2015); and Dress Codes: The Third ICP
Triennial of Photography and Video, International Center for Photography, New York (2009).