Idyll. Isabell Kamp / Fabian Friese

Exhibition from May 14 until July 9, 2023

Atmospheric installations, ceramic body forms and dreamlike stage designs: the IDYLL exhibition will present selected works of the Luise Straus Prize winner of the LVR, Isabell Kamp (b. 1980 in Bonn), and the Max Ernst Grant holder of the City of Brühl, Fabian Friese (b. 1994 in Leverkusen).

While Isabell Kamp interprets the medium of ceramics in a contemporary way with surreal sculptures and objects, supplementing them with materials like wood, metal, rope, fabric or everyday objects, Fabian Friese creates atmospheric worlds of illusion in his expansive works with light, plants and alienated furnishings.

Entangled wrists and fingers pointing nowhere that lead a peculiar inner life: with works like Turning Point, Isabell Kamp reflects on conflict situations and aspects of interpersonal communications. At the same time, she embarks on a search for a visual equivalent for the human body and its vulnerability. The fragile ceramic serves as a means of expression here.

Isabell Kamp completed a course of study at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design between 2003 and 2008. She has been represented in national and international exhibitions since 2004.

Fabian Friese uses design classics, dramatic lighting and audio installation strategies for his works. The site-specific work Hollywood Tour, a reproduction of an attraction at the “Phantasialand” amusement park, transports the initial moment into the constructed fantasy world.

In his work Secret Garden, an Ailanthus altissima, or tree of heaven, spreads out in the exhibition space. A fascinating and unfamiliar scenery thus comes into being in this playing with citations from the history of culture and architecture.

Fabian Friese studied Fine Arts as of 2015 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and was distinguished in 2021 with the title “Meisterschüler” (master student) by Professor Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster.

The art works of Isabell Kamp and Fabian Friese allow visitors to submerge into new worlds: the familiar and the disturbing, dream and reality blur.

Max Ernst Grant of the City of Brühl / Luise Straus Prize of the LVR

The Max Ernst Grant of the City of Brühl is awarded to young artists each year on the occasion of the birthday of Max Ernst, who was born in Brühl. In the course of its 53-year history, the scholarship has established itself as a renowned advancement award at the international level.

The Luise Straus Prize of the LVR has been awarded since 2014 and distinguishes an outstanding woman artist in the field of fine arts who has lived or worked in the region of the LVR (The Rhineland Regional Council) or at least two years and is presented every two years. Besides the prize money, the awards each include an exhibition.