salbung – anointing

Artists

Lynne Gbodjrou Kouassi

Press release

The Helmhaus’s white floors are its trademark. Yet they are also polarising. Some people like them, while others, for various reasons, find them objectionable. Lynne Gbodjrou Kouassi is an artist who has been working with – and against – those same white floors for many years now. For the 2019 exhibition of color, for example, she painted the floor of the first floor purple – even if the Helmhaus reverted to its standard white as soon as the show was over. The new institutional identities that Lynne Gbodjrou Kouassi is now proposing will be revealed in this first major solo exhibition of hers, called salbung – anointing. The act of rubbing a substance into the skin can be soothing; but it can also signify a shift or transfer of power. The artist developed this exhibition in close collaboration with the Helmhaus over a period of several years.