Fade into Form

Fade into Form For the exhibition Fade into Form, I have brought together two artists who had never met before: Nina Maria Küchler from Hamburg and Caroline Streck from Cologne. Their connection was not accidental but the result of long-term observation, an intuitive idea, and perhaps a touch of curatorial matchmaking. I have known Nina Maria Küchler since 2012, when she first exhibited at Syker Vorwerk as part of Residence – Young Art from Lower Saxony. At the time, we presented a group show featuring former fellows of the Künstlerstätte Stuhr-Heiligenrode. Since then, I have followed Nina’s work for many years and observed the evolution of her artistic practice. I met Caroline Streck around three years ago. Even before I had seen her works in person, something sparked while listening to her: a sense that her artistic approach could form an exciting dialogue with Nina’s. The idea stayed with me. I introduced the two artists on Instagram, and the response was immediate—positive, curious, open. The idea of a duo exhibition slowly took shape, and last year I asked them whether they could imagine working together. The result of that collaboration is what we encounter here now: It’s a match! Although the two artists work very differently, clear lines of connection emerge between their practices. From the outset, my hope was that they would not merely exhibit side by side but enter into a genuine dialogue visible within the exhibition space. This wish has been fulfilled: Both artists visited each other in their studios in Hamburg and Cologne and developed the concept for the show together. In each room, one wall now features a light grey form that they designed jointly. Each form merges compositional elements taken from both of their practices. What appeared is a shared archive of forms that establishes the foundation for further spatial gestures, sets the tonal atmosphere of the exhibition, and connects the different rooms with one another. Both artists work abstractly. Themes such as form and colour are central to their work—although they develop these concerns in distinctly separate ways. Room 1: The Balcony Chamber The curatorial idea becomes especially visible in what is known as the Balcony Chamber. On the wall bearing the grey form hangs a pair of works: on the left, a drawing from Nina Maria Küchler’s Façade series; on the right, Caroline Streck’s painting J’adore mes meufs explosives (“I adore my explosive girls”). Nina’s drawing is composed with exacting precision—lines drawn with a ruler, circles set by compass, and between them, abstract fields of colour. In the lower section lies a carefully measured grid of squares. Caroline Streck’s painting, by contrast, offers another circular form, yet here everything is freehand, spontaneous, organic. The lines appear animated, almost imbued with a vital spirit. Despite these differences, both works draw on geometric principles: symmetry, circle, form. This small pairing deliberately marks the exhibition’s entrance. It introduces the distinct artistic signatures of the two artists. Both are rooted in painting, yet they also understand it in spatial, installation-based terms, extending it into the room through different media. Already in this space the connective quality of the shared form becomes strikingly clear. Conceptually, the grey form appears to diffuse downward through the ceiling, re-emerging in the foyer on the ground floor—a vertical continuum that interlaces the rooms across storeys and makes the shared visual language experientially present. “Who is stressed more?” The same room is dominated by a textile installation by Caroline Streck: a curtain hanging diagonally in the space, cut with the titular sentence Who is stressed more? The letters drift irregularly, sometimes against the reading direction, sometimes almost illegible. Here, the title becomes the content: the work reflects on the conditions under which art is produced. A curtain—normally dividing private and public—is stripped of its function. Here it stands for the dissolution of that boundary within a working reality in which artistic self-employment often means overextension, self-exploitation, and constant availability. Who is stressed more? becomes both a self-reflexive and collective question: Who bears the burden—mentally, emotionally, physically—and at what cost? The work weaves personal experience with structural issues such as mental load, burnout, care work, and the unequal conditions of women’s artistic production. Behind Streck’s abstraction lies a clear theoretical framework engaging with feminist discourse. “Clouds” Also in this room is a work by Nina Maria Küchler that extends into the outdoors: Clouds (2025). Inside, a print displays the titular quote and a drawing of a digitalised cloud form. The reference point is a dialogue from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which Hamlet and Polonius discuss the shape of the clouds—a playful exchange that becomes a parable about authority and power: Who determines what is seen, named, and believed? On the balcony, five mirrored glass objects expand the work. Their forms are based on cloud sketches drawn in summer 2025. The objects reflect sky and surroundings as well as the viewers themselves. Between reflection and transparency, a fleeting, site-specific dialogue arises about perception, projection, and the power of looking. Already in this first room, the artists’ differences and shared concerns become visible: an interest in site-specificity, perception, and social contextualisation. Room 2: The Modern City The next room is dedicated solely to Nina Maria Küchler. Here her black-and-white film Gibellina – La Città Moderna(2022, 25 minutes) is shown. The film portrays the Sicilian city of Gibellina, destroyed by an earthquake in 1968. Roughly ten kilometres away, the planned city of Gibellina Nuova emerged, designed from the 1980s onward by international architects and artists as an “ideal city.” A striking collection of contemporary art was created: 55 sculptures and architectural monuments distributed across the town, giving it the highest density of modern artworks in Italy today. Yet reality fell short of the vision: planned for 50,000 residents, only around 4,000 live in Gibellina Nuova today. Many areas stand empty and are already decaying. Küchler’s film becomes a metaphor for urban utopias that fail when put into practice. It shows that while life without art may be difficult to imagine, art without life cannot thrive either. Three additional drawings from the Façade series are shown in this room, depicting architectural forms from Küchler’s surroundings, translated into her own artistic vocabulary. A large-scale work from the series The Fragile Cities accompanies them: a print on transparent chiffon, imitating half a column. On the fabric appears a fragment of a façade from East Berlin. These so-called “form stones” once served as decoration or public art. In Küchler’s work, they become a poetic reflection on the fragility of architecture and its political and ideological charge. Room 3: Dialogue In the following room, more works from Küchler’s Façade series meet Caroline Streck’s painting To sit in Abundance. These pieces were deliberately paired. Though both are abstract, each artist perceives bird-like forms in her own work. Like the clouds, this association invites multiple interpretations. Such openness of seeing and meaning-making is essential to both practices. Their colours also resonate with each other and guide visitors toward the next room, which presents Streck’s works exclusively. Room 4: Constructions Here we encounter Caroline Streck’s artistic language in greater depth: several paintings and smaller drawings. Her titles often hint at emotional states; for Streck, her works are reflections of physical and mental conditions. The large painting Dein Geist komme (“Thy Spirit Come”) shows a form reminiscent of a figure—perhaps a game piece, or, with the luminous lines around the head area, even an abstracted Madonna. The painting has been reworked in numerous layers over many years. Streck consciously speaks of construction rather than composition: the works are condensations, formed through repetition and revision until they reach their proper state. Also on view is a hanging object from the Sprouts series, made from glass, lead, and satin ribbon. The antique glass framed with lead alludes to church windows or Tiffany lamps. Streck is interested in how materials carry cultural coding. Historically, stained glass was embedded in male-dominated sacred iconography. In Sprouts 3, one can discern forms reminiscent of female genitalia—abstracted and poetic. The pale blue satin ribbon connecting the object to the floor is carefully chosen: today associated with “boys,” it was originally linked to Marian iconography as a symbol of the feminine. Streck leverages this historical shift to reflect on the cultural coding of colour. Room 5: Overlays The following room is shared by both artists once again. Here, another glass-and-lead piece from Streck’s Sprouts series—two interlocking forms that recall the silhouette of a clitoris—encounters a large, four-part drawing from Küchler’s Façade series. In scale and composition, Küchler’s work evokes a stained-glass window. Three transparent chiffon columns extend this architectural reference. The dialogue between the works creates a balance between corporeality and architecture, between light, transparency, and solidity. Room 6: Transitions Across the corridor, works by both artists lead the way into a larger room. In the corridor itself hangs, among other pieces, a new painting from a four-part untitled series (2025) by Küchler, created specifically for the exhibition. Without individual titles, these works revolve around the central notion of to fade—a term that in English can mean both “to fade away” and “to transition.” Küchler translates this musical term—the gradual dying away of a song—into painting, where a precise endpoint is difficult to define. The first work shows translucent, unevenly opaque forms reminiscent of falling leaves. The second layers more opaque shapes in apricot tones, evoking architecture. Between these paintings, additional works by both artists are arranged. Colouristic and formal echoes appear everywhere: for example, a drawing by Streck above the door resembles a leaf, visually linking to the “falling” shapes in Nina’s paintings. The corridor becomes a connective space, in which the relationships between the works unfold on their own. Room 7: Inside and Outside The next room is filled entirely by Caroline Streck’s installation Sichtschutz (built me a house). The work consists of a double wire panel fence commonly found in German gardens—here positioned monumentally in the space. Instead of the usual industrial grey plastic strips, Streck has woven pastel-coloured fabric through the grid. The result is a textile, translucent boundary—an inversion of the conventional privacy screen. Seen from the back, the structure appears fragile: visible seams, fraying edges, loose threads. The work addresses notions of protection, domesticity, and the need for an inner, private space. At the same time, it reflects on societal ideals of boundary-making, perfection, and control—and counters them with a poetic, soft alternative. Accompanying the installation are four paintings from 2021 and 2022, revealing Streck’s geometric-constructive phase. Room 8: Energy The exhibition concludes in a room marked by particular intensity. The grey form on the wall narrows as it rises—a dynamic, almost charged element. Four works hang on the walls: two by Nina Maria Küchler from the untitled 2025 series, and two by Caroline Streck, Shadow Blue (2020) and Insta Coma (2021). In Küchler’s works, the layers become increasingly dense, the surfaces almost built up. Streck’s paintings rely on high contrast and rhythmic stripes. Two artistic worlds meet directly, and yet an unexpected harmony arises. The room concentrates the energy of the entire exhibition. Conclusion: Transformation and Emergence The title Fade into Form points to the exhibition’s central theme: transitions, transformations, the gradual emergence of form. It is not about disappearance but about becoming—about processes in which ideas condense and take concrete shape. The exhibition invites viewers to follow these transitions and to discover the subtle connections between the works of both artists in colour, form, materiality, and conceptual stance.