Notes on – Eliza Douglas
First published on hey woman!
Photography by Nadine Fraczkowski for W Magazine.
Words by Lola Froebe
Painting, performance and fashion – you can hardly get around Eliza Douglas at the moment. In her first solo exhibition in Berlin, the artist explores the link between body, meaning and abstraction.
Every now and then, reality reverses from language. A blank space takes its place, provokes ambiguity and culminates in own interpretation. Such unsaid in literary texts is called 'Leerstelle', a term from reception theory. Only the reader turns the void into meaning by filling it with associations. Or as titled in the current exhibition by Eliza Douglas in Berlin – Old Tissues Filled with Tears.
In fourteen selected works, Douglas dedicates herself to the question of how far the technique of omission can now be applied to painting. How much body does it take to perceive it as such? Furthermore, to put it quite banally, which body parts are, so to speak, the most important, constituent parts of the person behind them? If you look at the multitude of Douglas's own photo-realistically depicted hands and feet, which seem to multiply each other in the bright octagon of the Schinkel Klause, you are quickly back in the present. Of course, our hands instill the devices with life! Feet, on the other hand, seem almost useless and sentimental, but complete the experimental set-up and allow the body to assemble itself in mind – despite all the corporeality corrupted by allusion, concealment and dissolution. Douglas challenges the history of painting by confronting figuration with abstraction and thus liberating classical painting from its inviolability.
Eliza Douglas, exhibition view, Old Tissues Filled with Tears, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, 2017 photo: Andrea Rossetti courtesy the artist and Air de Paris, Paris
Eliza Douglas, exhibition view, Old Tissues Filled with Tears, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, 2017 photo: Andrea Rossetti courtesy the artist and Air de Paris, Paris
Parallels to fashion are revealed here as well. Anne Imhof recently described her own fascination: "[fashion] is so in the moment but, at the same time, all about taking from history." Together with her partner Imhof, Douglas recently did an editorial for the first time in W Magazine in which the androgynous and yet ethereal Douglas can be seen as a model with all kinds of smartphones, chargers, soft drinks and the American Statue of Liberty. Lotta Volkova – who hired Douglas for the first Fall 2016 show by Demna Gvasalias for Balenciaga – was in charge of the styling. As a teenager, Douglas modeled for Helmut Lang, so it is not surprising that the artist has since then been walking regularly for Balenciaga and Vetements as the muse of Gvasalia and Volkova.
Douglas was born in New York in 1984. After studying at Bard College, Douglas concentrated on painting at the Frankfurt Städelschule and studied in the classes of Monika Baer and Amy Sillman, among others. She has also been involved in Anne Imhof's celebrated performances, including Angst II at Hamburger Bahnhof and Faust at Venice Biennale, for which Imhof received the Golden Lion. In autumn of 2017, both artists were shown for the first time in a joint exhibition at the Buchholz Gallery in New York.
Photographs by Nadine Fraczkowski; Styled by Lotta Volkova; Hair by Holli Smith for Oribe at Art Partner. Models: Tyler Blue Golden at Re:Quest Model Management, Eliza Douglas. Set design by Mila Taylor-Young at D+V Management. produced by Simon Malivindi at Red Hook Labs; Photography assistants: Maximilian Thuemier, Mari Elkon; fashion assistants: Marianne Kakko, Sergio Mejia
At the opening night of Old Tissues Filled with Tears in Berlin, the Frankfurt-based artist attracted all attention. Her enchanting presence was by no means striking solely due to her appearance – patterned blouse, cognac-colored leather coat and Saint Laurent boots. Rather, it was her intangible understatement that also echoes in her work. An eloquent silence, where everything chatters and pops, a refreshing promise.