Esther Babulik

Rebekka Benzenberg

Michaela Schweighofer

SebastianThewes

3 June – 30 July 2023

FLⒶT$

Avenue Charles-Quint 293

1083 Bruxelles

BEFORE WE HIT THE
GROUND

THINGS

– COVERING IN SHAME

WORLDS WILL BE STITCHED TOGETHER

AND WE FURIOUSLY

DREAM ABOUT LOVE

– Alfons Knogl

FLⒶT$ is pleased to
present DRY RAIN; an exhibition including sculptural works
by Esther Babulik, Rebekka Benzenberg, Michaela
Schweighofer and Sebastian Thewes.

Esther Babulik graduated from Royal Academy of fine arts Brussels.

She tries to develop a «body building process», this year she’s focusing on Parthenogenesis a natural form of asexual
reproduction real for certain animal and plant species, but still fantasised
for humans, an intermediary between nature and culture, biology and technology,
fantasy and reality.

Her recents exhibitions include Stresstest, curated by New scenario,
and soon she will exhibit with Hyun Woo Lee at Afterhours Zone in Paris. She
did residencies like the Wonder in Paris and Petrohradská kolektiv in
Prague.

Rebekka Benzenberg: “What we consider humane is a normative regulation of social behavior
that is not constant. The restrictions and exclusions that these regulations
entail are as variable as the idea on which they are based. Conventions and
their symbols and codes are dynamic. I work with materials that stands for
social/societal phenomena and can be read as thair codes.

I build mainly installative, with everyday materials. These materials
offer a high range of association, which despite the new assignment creates
access through recognition.

A central theme in my work is power, its structures or misuse. I work
on themes that interest me on the basis of related materials and try to
question them with the help of deconstruction. I deal with individual materials
sometimes for years until I have dissected them for myself both physically and
in terms of content. Fur, pantyhose, mattresses and co. are materials that
appear again and again. In my work I often play with the status-power object
fur, which stands for something luxurious, but also, in a contemporary way, for
a clichéd femininity. In the
history of fur, the gender that wears it has constantly changed, but the image
is still associated with prestige and power or status. But the object of fur
and its status are in flux, as are the values it represents. Because of animal
rights activists and the like, the view of fur is also changing to something
cruel and deadly, opposed to life.”

Rebekka Benzenberg was born 1990 in Duisburg. She
lives and works in Berlin

She studied Fine at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf 2013-2020 with Rita
McBride, Franka Hörnschemeyer and
Ellen Gallagher and was appointed Meisterschülerin of Franka Hörnschemeyer in 2020.

Michaela Schweighofer (1983) is a visual artist from Austria, based in Brussels and Vienna.
She has an inquisitive approach to sculpture that often leads to immersing
herself in handicrafts and new techniques. Michaela is interested in
sociopolitical and feminist questions, which she explores within her practice
and in various collaborative formations. Her work takes shape in texts,
lectures, sculptures, and sculptural installations. She studied English,
Psychology and Philosophy at the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz and the
Université VII in Paris, as
well as Video and Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and the
University of Fine Arts (HFBK) in Hamburg.

Sebastian Thewes main felds of artistic practice are lying in areas like experimental
soundart, video, experimental animation, photography, 3D, netart and
installation. He is exploring the aesthetics and aspects of modern culture, but
also tracing ancient remains and follows their way through the now into the
future. He is tracking down archaic prototypes and symbols from the past which
survived in the tech and science based culture and revive under the surface of
daily live to show up in sometimes unusual times and hidden or unfamiliar ways.
He uses those aspects and patterns in a new contemporary context in combination
with the research of modern aesthetics to trigger mechanisms of mysticism and
animism in the modern sophisticated human.

He has exhibited works at galleries and institutions globally including
Kunsthalle Baden Baden, Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Kunsthaus NRW Kornelimünster, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, CCA Center of Contemporary Art Tbilisi,
Marrakech Biennale 6, Werkleitz Festival Halle, ZKM Karlsruhe, Sammlung Philara
Düsseldorf, Art Cologne, Transmediale Berlin, Le
Commun (BAC) Geneva, UNTITLED Art Fair Miami. Sebastian Thewes, born 1980, lives and works in Cologne, Germany.