Herald St and Maureen Paley are delighted to announce Gebrochenes Pferd, an exhibition of new works by Alexandra Bircken taking place in both galleries’ East London premises. Comprising sculpture, wall installation, and photography, this body of work continues Bircken’s clinical dissections of cars and motorcycles to reveal our visceral connections to the machines which empower us. Through weaving and chromed surfaces, she expands her focus from that of the singular body to the enmeshed systems which simultaneously protect and stifle the individual.
German for ‘broken horse’, the title of the exhibition announces a rupture and a feeling of unease. The same name is given to two works which echo one another in separate spaces. At Maureen Paley, we are confronted by a rocking horse in turned wood, its abdomen sliced down the middle and splayed open. Its counterpart at Herald St is a V10 combustion engine removed from an Audi RS 6 and cut into six clean tranches. The horse has long been a symbol of mobility, unbridled speed, and technological prowess even after it was replaced by fossil-fuel powered machines, as exemplified by Ferrari’s Cavallino Rampante logo. The V10 represents a pinnacle in the era of combustion engines, embodying an excess of engineering, obsession with size, and hedonistic recklessness. In this pair of sculptures, both are rendered destructive and dysfunctional, the thrill of speed and fanatical optimism of progress cut dead and brought to a standstill. Yet there remains a chance of resurrection, resting on the hinge holding the two halves of the wooden horse apart.
For more information, visit Herald St
