Review by Àngels Miralda
The Luther Museum is hosting two exhibitions concurrent to World Pride in Amsterdam. It might seem surprising to some, but both feature references to the relatively long acceptance of LGBTQI+ communities within the Lutheran church. Some of its denominations accept queer members fully, including as ordained ministers. It is in this sense that artist Andrea Knezović, who has put this show together, relates the queer identity to Luther’s chosen name of Eleutherius (the free one) to express how an entirely interior belief and relationship with God frees one of having to prove themselves to the outward community.
Farren Linhares
Making an exhibition in a space such as the Luther Museum also follows this logic as a non-traditional contemporary art space that lives alongside historical collections and needs to separate itself by creating its own route through the museum’s rooms and hallways. The works of eight artists (Yamuna Forzani, Philipp Gufler, Andrea Knezović, Farren Linhares, Katja Mater, Rory Pilgrim, Mikołaj Sobczak, Thato Toeba) wind through this environment with commentaries on time, identity, history, and community from a rich diversity of queer perspectives.
The first room opens to a large-scale sculptural print by Farren Linhares. Using diagrams and the visual form of the mind-map, the text extends like a wave through thoughts and emotion, creating a psycho-social context of crip-queer identity. This is followed by a Katja Mater clock image that reads “153” making the concept of time from a certainty into ambiguous terrain.
Katja Mater
Katja Mater
The dense surroundings of the Luther Museum are challenged by vibrant paintings of Mikołaj Sobczak that combine folktales, religious themes, and grotesque devils that fuse historical folk and narrative tradition with queer themes. The bold colours also stand out from the historical surroundings in a large-scale tapestry by Yamuna Forzani who accentuates the freedom of a chosen family. A multimedia collage work by Thato Toeba splices and interrupts imagery to create takes on history that read through absence and propose new ways of interpreting social realities. All three of these works provide layered readings of the contemporary through references to history and cultural tradition.
Mikołaj Sobczak
Like Toeba’s image that stands on a pedestal, a small painting by Rory Pilgrim is attached to a hand-carved stump-looking podium. Its pastel pinks and blues trace the surface with enchanted lines that are typical of Pilgrim’s dreamy scenes. At the opening, Pilgrim performed a rare solo referencing their work that typically amplifies the voices of others. On this occasion, song served as a reminder of the binding nature of choirs within Lutheran practice and the presence of song within ceremonies.
Phillip Gufler
In the long hallway of the museum that connects each of its rooms, textile works by Philipp Gufler allude to his long-standing archival practice in which little-known evidence of historical queer life and activism are recovered and brought forward on screenprinted silk collages. In reference to queer coding, colors and patterns often accompany images and text to commemorate historic struggles. Not long ago, Gufler dedicated an exhibition to the 19th century queer activist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs who first proposed the legal definition of a third gender and formed part of the Lutheran community in Germany.
Andrea Knezović
Lastly, just before the exit, Andrea Knezović, the artist-curator of the exhibition, has just one work on display. This hand-drawn paper diagram is one of her unique geometric compositions that incorporate shapes, dots, and words into playful compositions that pose questions, form abstract connections, and interlace words with emotion, politics and psychology. It is always interesting to visit exhibitions curated by artists because they tend to invite artists whose work connects to their own concerns. From this last work, a constellation of formal, intellectual, and personal connections reveals a complex path between each of the other works and embodies an abstract and playful form of weaving community.
Katja Mater
Katja Mater
Katja Mater
Mikołaj Sobczak
Mikołaj Sobczak
Mikołaj Sobczak & Thato Toeba
