Not Only Monkeys

How does the history of image printing influence our visual memory? Why is art afraid of being decorative? And what do monkeys have to do with our self-perception? Covering more than 600 square metres, Elisabeth Ehmann’s cosmos of animals, faces, and kaleidoscopic landscapes comprises around 30 sculptures, collages, and installation elements. Though the show’s catchy aesthetic might seem harmless at first, it takes viewers on a journey through the history of images and shows us how our ways of seeing have been conditioned along the way.

The eponymous monkey appears not only as a representational motif in various guises, but also as a metaphor: both similar to humans and yet ‘other’, it stands for shortcomings in human self-awareness and the indissoluble gap between how we perceive ourselves and how we are perceived by others. Perceptual shifts also lie in wait as we look at the artist’s collages, some of which span several metres. On closer inspection, their richness of detail transpires as a journey through the history of image reproduction, from historical encyclopaedias and 1970s porn magazines to the latest catalogues of international auction houses. The conjunction of these pictorial sources originating from archives, antiquarian bookshops, and magazine racks does not just amount to a form of sampling, but rather offers insights into the evolution of representational forms, printing processes, and paper properties – in short, into the development of image printing. In an expansion of traditional analogue techniques, we see digitised collage motifs printed on fabrics made from recycled plastic bottles or bronze casts in versions made from wood-based polymers. They exemplify contemporary, technologically innovative, and sustainable image-making.

Originally trained as a graphic designer, Ehmann came to fine art as something of an outsider. She thus explores the conventional idea of the artist’s role while challenging the boundaries of the concept of art by incorporating cross-disciplinary elements. We can see an embodiment of this approach in the exhibition’s replica of her studio, where visitors can experiment with her tools and materials, and especially in the laid dining table, which works both as an installation and a setting where supper evenings are held in the exhibition.