Untitled - lorch + seidel contemporary

20.08.2012
www.berlin-artparasites.com
PRESSESPIEGEL 2012
A SLICE OF ART DE
Berlin Art Parasites / Anna Frankowska online
Interview: Featured Preview Berlin Artist Anke Eilergerhard
A SLICE OF ART
Artist Anke Eilergerhard is known for making artwork inspired by her kitchen and cakes in particular.
This year she will take her culinary art skills to Preview Berlin!
Always hungry for new art and with the Berlin Art Week and Preview Berlin Art Fair in particular
just around the corner we decided to sit down, have a slice of cake and a rather tasty conversation
with the artist Anke Eilergerhard who will be exhibiting at Preview Berlin at Tempelhof Airport
in September. The leading Pâtissier of Preview swapped icing for paint and whipped cream for
silicone to create delicious, slightly ironic, extremely colorful and wonderfully elaborate, in both
form and shape, artworks. Inspired by the kitchen and the home space, Eilergerhard works might
come accross as cliche and kitschy, but they are definitely more than cute as pie. In addition to
this year‘s Preview Berlin Art Fair, Anke Eilergerhard‘s work can be found in Davis Klemm Gallery
in Frankfurt-Westend.
BAPS: What are the themes you explore in your work?
AE: Beauty, decay, gluttony, pleasure, excess, exploitation, deception, maddess, life and happiness.
BAPS: Why do you work in the particular medium you use? It looks very similar to cake decorator‘s
icing. What is it exactly?
AE: Highly pigmented silicone. For me however, it is just a means to an end. I happily work with
other materials depending on what ideas I pursue. Silicione certainly fits well with the context of
my work. It is the idea that the beauty industry and the handwork industry both use silicone to
cover up flaws.
BAPS: What is your work process like? Do you do a lot of planning or do you work spontaneously?
AE: „Spontaneously“ sounds great, but ofen it is not how I work. Sculpture doesnt really work
without planning. At least it wouldnt work in my case. The statics and the structures put together
from different elements have to be carefuly thought through. Also with the materials I use there is
no room for trial and error. Consequently the planning of an entire exhibition can take months.
BAPS: Yes and icing, or silicone, can dry fast! How did you first start making your art?
AE: I started with big format paintings of cakes. This subject matter has taken a very important
place in my work for over 20 years. It started in 1990s with extremely colorful, oversized cakes
and cake slices painted over ready made floral patterns. Nowadays I focus more and more on the
detail of whipped cream topping, which for me is not only
a perfect shape but also a slice of heaven on earth.
BAPS: Do you have any long term art goals, or dreams you would like to fulfill?
AE: Documenta, Guggenheim, Neue Nationalgalerie?
BAPS: Is there anything else you d like to tell us about yourself and your artwork?
AE: I call my series of works „Kitchenplastics“ because in the broadest sense I always draw
inspiration from the kitchen and the home spaces, though not specifically my kitchen or my home.
For me the kitchen, even if slightly ironica, stands for a symbol of the female identity (washing up,
baking, cleaning) in today‘s society. It is also a space of particular shapes, materials and colour
schemes that I find stimulating and fascinating. „Plastics“ refers to the character of my artworks as
well as to my preference of certain materials, like silicone.
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