🔗 Share this article

If you're planning washroom remodeling, it might be wise to steer clear of hiring this German artist for the job.

Truly, she's an expert using sealant applicators, crafting compelling artworks out of an unusual substance. Yet longer you observe the artworks, the more one notices a certain aspect seems somewhat off.

The thick lengths made of silicone she crafts stretch beyond the shelves on which they sit, sagging over the sides to the ground. The knotty foam pipes swell till they rupture. Certain pieces escape their acrylic glass box homes entirely, turning into a magnet for grime and particles. Let's just say the feedback are unlikely to earn pretty.

“I sometimes have the feeling that objects possess life inside an area,” states Herfeldt. This is why I started using this substance because it has this very bodily texture and feeling.”

Indeed there’s something somewhat grotesque in these sculptures, starting with the suggestive swelling which extends, like a medical condition, from the support within the showspace, to the intestinal coils of foam which split open like medical emergencies. Displayed nearby, the artist presents prints showing the pieces seen from various perspectives: appearing as squirming organisms observed under magnification, or formations on a petri-dish.

“It interests me is how certain elements inside human forms occurring which possess a life of their own,” she says. Elements you can’t see or control.”

On the subject of unmanageable factors, the promotional image for the show features a photograph showing a dripping roof at her creative space in Kreuzberg, Berlin. Constructed erected decades ago as she explains, was quickly despised from residents because a lot of older edifices got demolished for its development. By the time in a state of disrepair as the artist – a native of that city although she spent her youth north of Hamburg before arriving in Berlin as a teenager – took up residence.

The rundown building was frustrating for the artist – placing artworks was difficult her pieces anxiously risk of ruin – but it was also intriguing. Without any blueprints available, it was unclear how to repair the malfunctions that arose. After a part of the roof within her workspace got thoroughly soaked it gave way completely, the single remedy meant swapping it with another – and so the cycle continued.

Elsewhere on the property, Herfeldt says the leaking was so bad so multiple shower basins were installed within the drop ceiling to divert the water to a different sink.

It dawned on me that the building resembled an organism, a totally dysfunctional body,” Herfeldt states.

These conditions brought to mind Dark Star, the initial work cinematic piece about an AI-powered spacecraft which becomes autonomous. Additionally, observers may note from the show’s title – three distinct names – more movies have inspired to have influenced Herfeldt’s show. Those labels indicate main characters in Friday 13th, another scary movie and the extraterrestrial saga respectively. Herfeldt cites an academic paper written by Carol J Clover, which identifies the last women standing as a unique film trope – women left alone to triumph.

These figures are somewhat masculine, on the silent side enabling their survival due to intelligence,” says Herfeldt of the archetypal final girl. “They don’t take drugs or have sex. It is irrelevant the viewer’s gender, we can all identify with the final girl.”

The artist identifies a similarity between these characters with her creations – things that are just about maintaining position amidst stress they face. So is her work more about cultural decay rather than simply dripping roofs? Similar to various systems, substances like silicone meant to insulate and guard us from damage in fact are decaying in our environment.

“Completely,” responds the artist.

Earlier in her career using foam materials, she experimented with alternative odd mediums. Past displays have involved tongue-like shapes crafted from the kind of nylon fabric found in in insulated clothing or apparel lining. Similarly, one finds the feeling these peculiar objects might animate – some are concertinaed like caterpillars mid-crawl, some droop heavily from walls blocking passages attracting dirt from footprints (She prompts people to handle and soil the works). Similar to the foam artworks, those fabric pieces also occupy – and breaking out of – cheap looking transparent cases. The pieces are deliberately unappealing, which is intentional.

“The sculptures exhibit a particular style which makes one compelled by, and at the same time they’re very disgusting,” the artist comments grinning. “The art aims for invisible, however, it is very present.”

Herfeldt's goal isn't work to make you feel relaxation or beauty. Rather, she wants you to feel uncomfortable, awkward, perhaps entertained. And if there's something wet dripping from above as well, don’t say the alert was given.