Laura Mietrup
«It never entered my mind»
30.8. - 18.10.2024

29.8.2024, 18-20h: Vernissage
Opening Hours during KUNSTTAGE Basel (30.8. - 1.9.): 11-18h
Special Event: Guided tour with the artist: 1.9., 15h
Casual after-work Apéro with Laura Mietrup: 29.9., 18-20h

«It never entered my mind»… one stumbles upon this sentence in the context of the artistic practice of Basel artist Laura Mietrup, who usually works with a clear and calculated program and does not leave much to chance. How does it all come together? Her title, borrowed from the legendary American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer Miles Davis, literally sets the tone for the show.

«It never entered my mind» is also the title Laura Mietrup has given to a series of drawings with sculptural and architectural references. In these drawings she lets her mind wander, opening it up to creative challenges from her surroundings. The drawings—gouaches on paper, to be exact—are characterized by playfully placed geometric and organic forms in a harmonious and reduced color palette. From this series, she chose two drawings for the present show. Minimalist wall objects, which capture the viewer’s gaze, are placed around the gallery space; they are the main focus of the show.

These objects, reminiscent of “nets” or “cages”, are based on architectural elements and house facades. For many years, the artist has been keeping a “diary” of drawings of the treasures she discovers on her city walks. Finely polished, organically shaped objects lie gently behind smooth wooden rods. They resemble each other, but each has an individual and very special shape and formal language. The lines of the grids become the connecting elements that emphasize both the relationship between them and the space between, behind, and around—merging with the architecture of the gallery space. Laura Mietrup’s works are space-related; they become points of reference through strategic placement, engaging in a symbiotic relationship with the exhibition space by embracing, reflecting, and realigning it.

Laura Mietrup’s artistic practice is multi-faceted; she feels at home in many media, but her focus is placed on a three-dimensional and architecture-related aesthetic. Even in her drawing and painting practices, she uses a predominantly sculptural vocabulary. She moves freely between two- and three-dimensionality and questions issues of signification, functionality, and readability. Volumes, materials, borders, and architectural hierarchies are permanently renegotiated in her practice, and her work breaks through the boundaries of performance, installation, and display, always involving the viewer in the process.

Mietrup develops a new formal language system, which urgently needs interpretation from the viewer: recognizing and reading forms that seem familiar to the viewer are transformed into a new, unknown language. What this visual lexicon means remains mysterious and ultimately unsolved. As viewers, we recognize reflections on the formal language of modernism within the context of negotiating Mietrup’s own role as an artist.

Laura Mietrup (*1987, Rheinfelden, CH) graduated with a B.A. in Fine Arts from the HGK/FHNW, Basel in 2017 and completed an M.A. in Contemporary Art Practice at the HKB in Bern. She received multiple awards and grants, among others the Förderpreis of the BEWE Stiftung, the Exhibition Award Kunstmuseum Olten, grants from the Aargauer Kuratorium and Kunstkredit Basel-Stadt. Her work has entered multiple private and institutional collections. Selected solo shows include Kunsthalle Arbon, Dienstraum/Kunstmuseum Olten, Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel (Duo show with Robin Michel), Kunsthaus Baselland, Galerie Ann Mazotti, and Balzer Projects, Basel.

List of works

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