Silvia Bächli, Geta Brătescu, Andrea Tippel: The Ruler of Justice / Rodrigo Hernández: I Am Nothing

The Ruler of Justice
Silvia Bächli, Geta Brătescu and Andrea Tippel

The group exhibition The Ruler of Justice highlights the various artistic practices of the three female artists Silvia Bächli (*1956, Switzerland), Geta Brătescu (*1926, Romania) and Andrea Tippel (*1945–d. 2012, Germany). With a special focus on drawing, the exhibition reflects on how the medium is used as a vehicle for ideas such as representations of time and space or transformations into text and different types of media. Each mark stands for a specific artistic approach and becomes a reference point for gestures. Moreover, The Ruler of Justice examines how varying life circumstances have affected the artwork of Bächli, Brătescu and Tippel. The title of the exhibition derives from a drawing by Andrea Tippel. It is a tempting idea that justice could be carried out as easily as drawing a line with a ruler, an idea that brings with it aesthetic and ethical questions.

Drawing was a hermeneutic process for the German-born Tippel. Her complex use of text and image represents an emblematic approach combined with abstraction and humor. Swiss artist Silvia Bächli believes that “good drawings are larger than the format decreed by the edge of the paper.” In the exhibition, Bächli presents a new selection of works that focus on the fragmented female body in relation to abstract figures that result from her artistic gestures. In an effort to leave classical repertoires behind, Romanian artist Geta Brătescu uses various methods, such as drawing with her eyes closed, in order to reveal the unconscious. The exhibition features recent works from Brătescu that show the playful and minimalistic approach of an artist who experienced manifold social and political changes.

The exhibition is supported by the Ministry for Science, Research and the Arts in Baden-Württemberg and Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council.

I Am Nothing
Rodrigo Hernández

The protagonist of Patrick Modiano’s novel Missing Person fears being a man whose footsteps leave a trace that lasts only for a few seconds. “I am nothing” are the words the narrator uses to start his story.

For his first institutional solo exhibition in Germany at the Studio of the Heidelberger Kunstverein, Mexican artist Rodrigo Hernández looks back at Figure 1, a sculpture he made in 2013 that has traveled to different locations and been presented in various contexts. For this occasion, Hernández has conducted the sculpture through a multi-layered narrative, putting it in dialogue with a network of objects and images produced for the exhibition.

The space created to host Figure 1 is an installation that draws inspiration from both the work of the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico and a collection of documents and artifacts from the first Soviet space missions, shown in the exhibition Space: the Birth of a New Era at Pavilion No. 1 of VDNH in Moscow.

Rodrigo Hernández (*1983 in Mexico City) lives and works between Mexico City and Basel. He is currently a resident at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris for Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart and the Ministry for Science, Research and the Arts in Baden-Württemberg. This new residency program is a pilot project combining the Cité residency and a solo exhibition in Baden-Württemberg for the first time.

For the detailed program of events please check our website.

Curator: Susanne Weiß
Curatorial Assistant: Jasmin Meinold
Press & Education Program: Meike Wolfschlag