11. Aug - 26. Aug 2023
With works by Rupali Patil
Curator: Agnieszka Kilian
Exhibition open Aug 14 — Aug 26
by appointment +48 664 332 353
The artist is currently an artist-in-residency at Strandbad Tegelsee. The residency is organized in cooperation with Somos Arts.
“If there is water more powerful than this wild water…
…pray that it flows also through animals beautiful and faithful and ancient and female and brave.” * This excerpt from Lucille Clifton’s poem, profoundly infused with both prayer and fear, opens the narrative of the show. Mesmerized by watery corporeality, Clifton delves into its inner depths, a potent force that also renders females vulnerable. This twofold experience of potency and vulnerability becomes a pivotal moment for Rupali Patil. Beyond the poem’s verses, the artist leads us into a reality echoing a different system of power, devoid of the liberating flow of a river but drowning in repression. Repetitive patterns and motifs rend through Patil’s work like an eternal scream that we, alas, no longer hear, as our bodies and minds become inextricably etched into oppressive structures. In this static world, rhythms of blood do not offer liberation. On the contrary: the surge of repressive and neoliberal policies remains unspoken and silences reality, such as the plight of sugar cane workers who, in order to keep their employment, stop menstruation. In this cycle, Rupali Patil’s prayerful homage to the water and blood experience unveils a deep yearning: “we need a god who bleeds now.”*
* Lucille Clifton, “poem in praise of menstruation”
*Ntozake Shange