Daphne Ahlers
Liste Year
Year of Birth
Country of Birth
Presented by
2022
1986
Germany
Sundy
Daphne Ahlers, Die Langstreckensängerin, installation view, Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg, 2019. Photo credit: Fred Dott / Halle für Kunst Lüneburg
Ahlers works with the concepts of “soft sculpture,” in which mainly malleable soft materials are used, and “shell sculpture,” which is based on forms that are made to protect soft materials from external violence. She finds models and ideas for her own thoughts in historical contexts from the cultural sciences and popular culture. An example that Ahlers has used for her works is the motif of the “codpiece,” which on the one hand was an element in dominant male fashion in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and on the other hand is used as a protective item in the martial arts and sports today.
Melanie Ohnemus (Director Kunsthaus Glarus, 2022)
Daphne Ahlers, Schamkapsel, 2019, plaster, varnish, fabric, 20 x 15 x 5.5 cm
Even if her works do not celebrate a spectacle of the female body, their background is feminist all the same. And not only for the reason that they address themes like the ban on facesitting in Great Britain, the centuries-long persecution of witches, or new potential contraceptives for men, but also because they are imbued with a fundamental body positivity that extends beyond genders. This affirmation of the body refers to its potential, which Ahlers seeks to fathom, expand and change in her works, for example, by isolating and recontextualizing, belittling or macroscopically focusing on individual body parts so as to undermine fixed definitions and attributions. In this sense, Ahlers is intent not on exploiting but on appropriating and reclaiming bodies in her works.
Stefanie Kleefeld (Director, Halle für Kunst Lüneburg, 2012-2020)
Daphne Ahlers' practice involves sculpture and music. For her sculptures she works mainly with textiles and other soft materials like latex, foam and casting resins for their inherent quality of pliability and adaptability, which in her view can represent its own kind of resistance. These handcrafted objects are often supported by industrially manufactured structures. Ahlers uses elements of comedy and "cuteness" as strategies of self-assertion and to navigate aspects of objectification and ornamentality.
Daphne Ahlers is also a member of the band “Lonely Boys” together with Rosa Rendl and collaborates with artist Lily Thiessen with whom she co-founded HULFE - an accessory line that creates objects and wearables that relate to the human body.
Daphne Ahlers (b. 1986 in Hamburg, Germany. Lives and works in Berlin.
Recent solo exhibitions:
Die Würflerin, 2022, Kunsthaus Glarus, CH; Depressions, 2020, Sundy, UK; Die Langstreckensängerin, 2019, Halle Für Kunst, Lüneburg, DE; Bloomers, 2019, Schiefe Zähne, Berlin, DE; Rinnen, 2018, Neuer Essener Kunstverein, DE.
Recent group exhibitions:
Daphne Ahlers, Leda Bourgogne, Evelyn Plaschg and Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo), 2022, Kunsthalle Bremerhaven, DE; Core, 2021, Sandy Brown, Berlin, DE; The Vapours, 2020, Kunstverein Bremerhaven, DE; A House Is Not A Home, Fri Art, Fribourg, 2019, CH; Here, here - das ich und alles andere, 2018, Braunsfelder Collection, Cologne, DE; Authentizität. Das authentisch Unauthentische, 2017, Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg, Germany; Solo Cose Belle, 2017, Galleria Acappella, Naples, IT.