Rita Kanne

Pieces of furniture give cues and are storage places: they tell us about their time, their milieu, and about their owners. Rita Kanne adopts this representative function for her objects and installations, by using the inventory of everyday middle-class world. A cupboard, a chest of drawers, moving boxes, household items, or anonymous amateur photographs and other ordinary visual material are accessed for her sculptural work, which questions the requirements of collective memory and the formation of cultural identity.

In this sense, titles as »Fremdenzimmer« (guest room) or »Telemöbel« (tele-furniture) transmit an associative dimension that is reinforced by the fact that the objects take the form of hybrid arrangements. In effect, Rita Kanne works with strategies of sculptural transformation and compression, by achieving an interplay of dimensions, material, and perspective in the smallest possible space. Her works evince a kind of overheated condition, in which word and image, or found piece and model, permeate each other and are linked through motifs.

Moreover, her art works always offer semantic breaches, when she loads up household objects with images from the outside world. For instance, the visual planes contain fragments of southern landscapes or sequences from old detective movies, which seem like optical residue, stuck to the furniture through the consumption of television. These and other scenes also convey something of the unfulfilled longing for beauty, excitement, and glamour that is stubbornly obstructed by the bourgeois interior, its cumbersome accoutrements and firmly established order.

VITA
 

1963
born in Höxter

1985-92
Academy of Fine Arts, Münster, Prof. Reiner Ruthenbeck

1992
Advancement Award, Regional Association of Westfalia-Lippe

1994
Advancement Art-Award, Melitta-Group

1995
Artist in Residence, Fellowship North-Rhine-Westfalia, Schloss Ringenberg

1998
1st Prize Art-in-architecture competition, Westfalia College, Bielefeld

2021
Catalogue Promotion, Foundation Kunstfonds, Bonn

SOLO EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)

2021
Anderntags, Rasche Ripken, Berlin (with Ralph Merschmann)

2012
Pearl & Earl, Kunstverein Ahaus (with Ralph Merschmann)

2009
Pearl, Kunstverein Unna (with Ralph Merschmann)
Panoptikum, Rasche Ripken, Berlin

2007
Hotel California, Kunstverein Schwäbisch Hall
Single Room, Kunstverein Siegburg

2005
Einod, Galerie Stefan Rasche, Münster (with Ralph Merschmann)

2002
Idyllen, Stadtgalerie, Elbeforum Brunsbüttel
Idyllen, Kunstraum Essen

2000
gut / bürgerlich, Künstlerhaus Göttingen

1999
… besser als nichts, Galerie Stefan Rasche, Münster
Zur schönen Aussicht, Städtische Galerie Remscheid

1996
Mittel und Wege, Galerie Stefan Rasche, Münster

1995
Mittel und Wege, Schloss Ringenberg, Hamminkeln
Circulus vitiosus, Kunstverein Dortmund

1991/94
Galerie Stefan Rasche, Münster (with Ralph Merschmann)

GROUP EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)

2022
DIE GROSSE 2022, Kunstpalast Düsseldorf

2018
Full House –  10 Jahre, Rasche Ripken, Berlin

2016
Widerstände, Kunstverein Unna

2015
Rates of exchanges, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb
Muster*Prozess, Rasche Ripken, Berlin

2014
Space Art Award, Cologne

2010
Castle of Discipline, Ausstellungsprojekt Mönchengladbach

2009
Umfeldarbeit 1, Projektraum Deutscher Künstlerbund, Berlin

2008
Etwas bleibt immer hängen, Rasche Ripken, Berlin

2007
countdown, Galerie Stefan Rasche, Münster

2006
homestories, Kunstverein Grafschaft Bentheim, Neuenhaus

2005
Neue Heimat 1, Galerie Stefan Rasche, Münster

2004
homelesshome, Paraplufabriek Nijmegen / NL

2003
Good News, Galerie Stefan Rasche, Münster
Mit Sinnen, Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten, Marl
Herbarium der Blicke, Kunsthalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn

2002
Urbane Sequenzen, Kunsthalle Erfurt, Schloss Ringenberg

2001
patterns of life, Museum Schloss Hardenberg, Velbert
bergauf!, Galerie Stefan Rasche, Münster

2000
Raumbezogene Projekte, Kunstverein Gelsenkirchen

1999
Testbild, Galerie Stefan Rasche, Münster
Modell – Wirklichkeit, Städtische Ausstellungshalle, Münster

1998
Genwelten, Kunsthalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn

1997
Weißes Rauschen, ehemaliges Arbeitsamt, Düsseldorf

1996
Letzter Aufguss, Wellenbad Grünstraße, Düsseldorf
Windows 96, Projekt im öffentlichen Raum, Hengelo

1995
junger westen, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen

1994
Studiogalerie XV, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Museum Abtei Liesborn, Kunstverein Ahlen, Städtisches Museum Herford

1991
Brandspuren, Museum Folkwang, Essen
Förderpreis Skulptur, Westfälischer Kunstverein Münster