Hella Gerlach‘s sculptural work is deeply intertwined with the living tapestry of human relationships, apparatuses, and environments. Her sculptures, often crafted from wood, ceramic, and textile serve as receptive connectors propelling movement, mediating between the body of the viewer (or user, since they sometimes ask to be touched), the object, and exhibition space. They offer a tactile bridge that playfully aim to open up the physical body to mutations and dialogue.

At the core of her practice lies a transformative examination of the body, both physical and emotional, through its vulnerable connection to other bodies, society, and technology. In her „Hangover series“, Gerlach constructs a lexicon of flexible forms, offering a tangible vocabulary for emotions that defy verbal expression. By mirroring, and triggering feelings, they provide an emotional bypass to therapeutically exit the space of mind and navigate mental landscapes through a physical experience of weight, texture, surface, sound, and color.

Gerlach's current work deepens her examination of the sense and concept of touch. Some of these hanging pieces, felted woolen bodies, are connected to a senso-motoric device which make them vibrate, shake, or spasm. Like furry and vulnerable nervous systems, these bodies engage a process-oriented inquiry of movement, touch, and play. This new body of objects is currently morphing into a laboratory for interactive sculptures, which grows with humans and their milieux. Her sculpture never presents itself as a balanced whole; instead, her works propose touch, movement and change as a paradigm.These are objects that may change form or fall apart at any moment.

February 2024

Hella Gerlach, born 1977 in Gummersbach, lives and works in Berlin. She studied, art history, archaeology and philosophy at the University of Cologne, interdisciplinary design at TH Cologne and experimental sculpture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Since 2010, Gerlach teaches art with a three-dimensional focus in various educational contexts. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions, including ACAPPELLA Naples, AIL Vienna, Machina Loci, Berkeley, Østfold Kunstsenter, Norway, Künstlerhaus Bremen, Stations, Berlin, Kunstverein Jesteburg, Kunstverein Hildesheim/Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum Hildesheim, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Goethe Institut Glasgow, Garden City Club, Cairo, Kunstverein Schwerin/Museum Schloss Schwerin, STUDIO Berlin, KW Berlin, Kunstverein Hamburg, Mark Morgan Perez Garage, Buenos Aires, Bonner Kunstverein, Kunstverein Langenhagen, Kunsthaus Dresden, and Kunstpavillon Innsbruck.

Gerlach is a member of the Bossman collective (since 2021), initiator of the exhibition project DIE FUGE (2009-2012), editorial member of the first issue of the artist magazine SKULPI (2010), co-initiator of the mobile exhibition platform WHEELY (2005-2007), and curator in the collective of the Simultanhalle, Cologne (2003-2006).