Marianne Vitale: Oh Don't Ask Why: Oh Don’t Ask Why; Kat. Cfa Berlin - Hardcover

Marianne Vitale (*1973 in East Rockaway, USA) presents larger-than-life steel sculptures, quite obviously rooted in the world of railways, in conjunction with large-scale installations, such as a wooden Wild West saloon bar, with foot rests still bearing the traces of its patrons. At the back of the bar in front of a black background, bizarre plaster masks are placed, their respective appearance formulated somewhere between horror and laughter. Her third group of works pertains to surfaces, such as old patched tar roofs, which she calls Roof or Shingle paintings. This enigmatic work again puts the spotlight on the great American Story and its failure. The artist resolves this strangeness in her text »Transformation rituals on the great frontier« where she recalls that women in America during the western expansion were prohibited from approaching furnaces during their menstrual periods; in Wisconsin there is actually a figure of speech whereby, during smelting, »the slag flows like the menstrual period of a woman«.

Exhibition:
CFA Contemporary Fine Arts Berlin, 1/5–6/6/2015

Marianne Vitale, born 1973 in East Rockaway, completed her BFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where she is living. In 2013–2014, her work "Archeo" on the New York Highline was a sensation. After that she had exhibitions at Tensa Konsthal in Sweden, the Kunstraum Innsbruck in Austria and at Le confort Moderne in Poitiers, France. With Oh, Don’t Ask Why in 2015 CFA Contemporary Fine Arts in Berlin presented her for the first time in Germany. Ongoing she had gallery shows 2016 in LA, 2015 in New York and 2014 Paris.

Nicole Hackert and Bruno Brunnet (the founder of the gallery in 1992) are a permanent part of the international gallery world with CFA situated now at Grolmanstraße in Berlin/Charlottenburg. Their work is inherent part with the beginning of artistic careers of Ceily Brown, Peter Doig, Sarah Lucas, Jonathan Meese, Raymond Pettibon, TAL R, Daniel Richter, Christian Rosa, Dana Schutz, Norbert Schwontkowski, Katja Strunz, Juergen Teller, or Marianne Vitale, just to name a few.