MICHAELA MEISE

Characteristic for Michaela Meise’s way of working is its collage-like approach and the use of the applied materials in a reduced way. Her spectrum covers drawing and sculpture as well as performance and music, where she arranges images and texts integrating them in collage-like installations. In terms of appearance and substance, her works are extremely complex and multi-layered, the style however is minimalistic. In her hugely diverse work, Michaela Meise explores the meaning of presence and representation of places and people, often developing spaces and architectural metaphors. She creates everyday images that can either be connected to personal memories or collective history, combining contexts from high as well as everyday culture. So, the first name in the title of the work shown here pays homage to Chelsea Manning (who was convicted of betrayal of secrets connected to Wikileaks and following the sentencing outed herself as transgender and changed her first name.) The surname in turn pays homage to Ferdinand Kramer, who designed the original model of the round bench in 1928 for a kindergarten in Frankfurt (during the city renewal program “New Frankfurt” that was coordinated for a few years by Ernst May at Frankfurt’s city building authority).

Michaela Meise was born in Hanau in 1976. She lives and works in Berlin.