Babette Walder | Momentum

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LAGOS Berlin @ MOMENTUM AiR

ARTIST RESIDENCY

#12

Babette Walder

WEB

2 – 29 October 2024

OPEN STUDIO

27 October 2024 @ 3-7 pm

So weit, so gut (So far, so good)

Artist Residency Exhibition by Babette Walder

@ MOMENTUM-LAGOS

Kunstquartier Bethanien, rm 134

Mariannenplatz 2, Berlin

ARTIST BIO

Babette Walder (born 1999 in Zürich) lives and works in Basel. She graduated in 2024 with a BA in Fine Arts from the Basel University of Art and Design, Institute Art Gender Nature, after completing a year of study at the Bern University of the Arts in 2021. In 2020 she graduated from Zurich University of the Arts. Babette Walder has participated in many group exhibitions throughout Switzerland, and has worked as a curator on “Sincerely” at the HGK Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel University of Art and Design.

ARTIST STATEMENT

In her artistic practice, Babette Walder makes scurrilous, affectionate, bitter objects and narrations which stand in as political bodies and challenge notions around different modern identities. In dead serious idiocy, the works navigate the tension between bitter realities and playful expression. Employing a tactile formal language to attempt subtle forms of rebellion, her works push and pull interaction and draw closer to the precious and strange bodies of others.

ARTIST RESIDENCY PROJECT

So weit, so gut (So far, so good)

Out of a daily practice of discovering Berlin by foot and collecting objects off the streets came an interest in the city‘s pavement and the shoes that grind on its surface day by day. Mundane cobblestones are reimagined as plinths carrying scaled down ceramic shoes, hard as stone themselves, on a surface seemingly polished down to a mirror finish. Evoking cliché images – steps on wet cobblestone, skin deep glamour of Berlin’s nightlife – „Die Grosse Frau“ is taking an equally unreal walk nearby, moving into dialogue through play on scale and visual language. „So far, so good“ marks only a stop-over in a long walk.

– Babette Walder

PREVIOUS WORK

Dornenobjekte (Thorn Objects, 2022-2023). Dog rose thorns on leather cap and gloves. Dimensions variable.

“Dog rose bushes inhabit the lesser noticed but omnipresent corners all over Basel’s public space. Harvesting their thorns and making them into wearable pieces for humans makes for an ambiguous portrayal of defense and attack.” – Babette Walder

Die Grosse Frau (The Large Woman, 2023). Video installation (portrait format, 8 min loop, sound), painted panels, speaker, fabric, tassels, darning wool.

“I was visited in a dream by a woman as tall as a house with grass on the top of her head. Sitting on that grass, I communicated with her without words but through art. In “Die Grosse Frau”, I wanted to imitate and become that woman, who was already me in a sense. The work reflects in a surrealist tone on self tenderness and womanhood.” – Babette Walder

Rüstung (Armor, 2024). Glazed ceramic, batting, cotton fabric, sewing thread, ribbon, faux leather straps, eyelets, metal fasteners. Dimensions variable, roughly human-sized.

Social gender roles provide structure. They shape society’s expectations and allow us to adapt to them. At the same time, they protect us from having to expose ourselves as individuals. It seems we could retreat into them, like into a comfortable shell. Yet this protection proves fragile. It aims to show something other than reality and can become painful when it doesn’t fit or is worn too much. Some armors are more uncomfortable than others. “I, too, wear armor, but it is allowed to be vulnerable. I don’t need it. It’s not the only thing protecting me.” Underneath the armor, we are soft but not defenseless. In her work, Babette Walder investigates masculine austerity, feigned strength, and rebellious fragility. Through careful choice of materials and production methods she creates a sculptural object of affection that simultaneously challenges and embraces itself in its fragility. – Lea Elina Hofer

Haltefische (Holding Fish, 2023). Twenty fish made from glazed ceramic, piercing jewellery, fishing hooks, leather, plastic, fishnet stockings, acrylic glass tank, ice, hand towels, desinfecting spray, print on paper. ca. 170 x 30 x 60 cm.