Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin – Sat 13 Jan 2024 to Sat 24 Feb 2024
📍Markgrafenstrasse 68, D-10969 – Wed-Sat 12-6pm
Renowned artist Sarah Entwistle, born in London in 1979 and currently residing in Berlin, presents a captivating exhibition at Galerie Barbara Thumm. Trained as an architect at prestigious institutions like The Bartlett, UCL, and Architectural Association, London, Entwistle’s multidisciplinary practice seamlessly intertwines with her exploration of identity, personal history, and material transformation.
In 2019, she garnered the main prize for Mostyn21 at Mostyn Gallery and received the Artists’ International Development Fund from Arts Council England in 2017. The Foundation Le Corbusier Grant for Visual Artists was awarded to her in 2014, coinciding with her solo exhibition, He was my father and I an atom, destined to grow into him, at Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris, in 2015. The exhibition marked the release of her experimental biography, Please send this book to my mother, published with the support of The Graham Foundation for the advanced studies in fine art, Chicago.
Entwistle’s artistic journey is deeply rooted in her fascination with the malleability of materials and the architectural practice of spolia, involving the appropriation of materials into new forms. A poignant counter force to inherited personal and cultural determinism, her broader project revolves around an ongoing dialogue and dismantling of the archive of her late grandfather and fellow architect, Clive Entwistle (1916-1976).
The vast collection of unrealized designs and personal papers unveiled Clive as a mercurial and complex figure, whose cardinal points of ‘Architecture, Spiritually, Intellect, and Sex’ exposed the intertwining of his personal and professional pursuits. This trans-generational haunting, marked by the segues of her grandfather’s life, is addressed through Entwistle’s practice as she navigates, filters, and digests the archive contents on multiple levels. The process involves repurposing original material and intellectual content into a visual and formal language, evaluating her own identity as an architect, artist, and woman.
The current exhibition, titled What was I aiming for? In my next life to be a great singer, and the life after to be a writer, and so on and so on…, draws inspiration from letters by photographer Vivienne Entwistle, the artist’s great-grandmother, to her son Clive Entwistle. The phrase ‘and so on and so on…’ serves as a gateway to the core of Entwistle’s inclination towards ‘transformational rehabilitation.’
Entwistle disrupts traditional sculptural and architectural narratives by combining steel, bronze, ceramic, and textile to explore fragmentation, interiority, and various formal elements. The metal elements, initially considered redundant and sourced from waste collection plants and casting foundries, find new life in her creations. Tubes of ceramic are shaped through a somatic process involving an industrial extruder, reflecting the artist’s commitment to innovative approaches.
Printed textiles, suspended to frame the objects, derive from architectural transfer sheets, adding an accidental formal lyricism to the overall composition. Entwistle’s approach, deeply influenced by the improvisational ethos of her self-taught great-grandmother, grandmother, and aunt, embraces improvisation and adaptation as foundational principles for both artistic creation and life.
In essence, Sarah Entwistle’s exhibition at Galerie Barbara Thumm serves as a testament to her transformative dialogues with materiality and identity. Her exploration of the archive, combined with her innovative use of materials, creates a visual and intellectual experience that invites viewers to reconsider their own relationships with history, identity, and the artistic process.
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