on focus
from 05.02.2018 to 02.09.2018

Tatiana Trouvé

Cosmogony

The Paris-based artist Tatiana Trouvé (born 1968) is among the most interesting sculptors working today. Four sculptures from a German private collection now welcome visitors to Neues Museum in the largest outer room on the ground floor.
Cosmogony is the title given to three used items of furniture with blankets draped over them. On closer inspection, however, the upholstery proves to be made not of sewn fabric but of heavy cast bronze. This is the way Tatiana Trouvé turns a thing into a sculpture – an “embodiment” of how she relates to the world. The weight of the material and the dignity accorded to it by art history create a burden under which the furniture literally collapses.

This prepares visitors for the discovery of detailed drawings that cover the blankets and the items of furniture, in some cases smothering them – like the outpourings of some quasi visionary longing for meaning in the world, expressed in diagrams and topographies.