GATHERING Roonstraße 108 Cologne
Gathering is thrilled to present Stefan Brüggemann’s second exhibition with the gallery, SPEED, opening 5 September at Gathering Cologne.
Brüggemann will situate Untitled (Faith) at the centre of the gallery’s interior. At two metres long, fifty centimetres high and carved from Italian marble, the sculpture’s minimalist, bench-like form subtly echoes a cross laid flat, merging function with symbolism to invite reflection on the sacred within the everyday. Black and red spray paint and stencilled vinyl lettering inject the work with fragmented text, interrupting the clean geometry and introducing a poetic tension between gesture and structure, ephemerality and solidity.
Brüggemann explores the possibility of language through the inclusion of text, particularly laconic phrasing, in his minimalist works. Through words, such as ‘sex’, ‘sun’ and the title of the sculpture, ‘faith’, the artist activates greater meaning, powerfully resonating with a society defined by rapid movement, the noise and superfluity of everyday messaging and the ennui of AI-generated slop. Brüggemann’s practice reflects a contemporary iteration of the Baroque painter’s chiaroscuro: angling tension and contradiction to spotlight spiritual and philosophical themes.
Covering the windows in red vinyl, the artist intervenes with the gallery space for SPEED, transforming its interior into a contemplative space akin to those of Catholicism. Fittingly situated near the gothic Cologne Cathedral and the Kolumba Museum, which houses the 1950 chapel nicknamed ‘Madonna of the Ruins’ by Gottfried Böhm, Brüggemann’s vinyl resembles stained glass, and invites viewers to consider faith, doubt and perception.
The artist reflects this dialogue in his works of gold leaf and spray paint that feature symbols of the cross. Brüggemann challenges more traditional materials like marble and gold leaf – that might be found in cathedrals or historical spaces – with spray paint, aluminium and vinyl lettering, elements that inform the artist’s characteristically punk aesthetic. With sound, materiality and conceptualism, the artist subverts the idea of a ‘sacred space’, instead presenting something more experiential and contradictory in a continually shifting world.
SPEED is a cacophony of interdisciplinary elements that elicit both the monumental and the intimate. Together, the components of the show deepen the artist’s longstanding investigation into language, representation and context, while responding directly to the material and conceptual possibilities of the gallery.
