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Bearing Capacity

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09.02 - 03.02 2024

AdBK München

 

 

 

The maximum load that a column can support before failing is known as its bearing capacity.

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One can also bear fruits or newborns, the unexpected arrival of a thousand stars, a scar, in the semblance of an angel, thick unplucked brows, bulging curves, creaking bones, fairy tale braids, titles of witch, duchess, bitch, a skull dented by stones, and perhaps a basket, filled with holy objects known only to the priestess of Athena.

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This series of vertical charcoal drawings is based on ancient and contemporary female figures whose postures have, through the ages, congealed into self-love, mutual support and resistance. Gao depicts actual and fictional supporting systems to bear the weight of old longing, new loss, strange bursts of a hairy self that is sometimes glimpsed but barely known, and an irresistible desire, to go everywhere, to stop anywhere.

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The exhibition space is conceived as a flattened and leaky architectural structure, upon which parasitic compounds of living and non-living things settle and grow in between each other.

 

Recurring themes, drawn fast or slow, are encapsulated at different phases of her working process, assembling sigils, sketches, snapshots or, as we often call it, the serious stuff. (Text by Jianling Zhang)

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