Artists

Stefanie Haller, Leandra Kleber

Press release

Stefanie Haller (*1990) and Ava Leandra Kleber (*1997) create their art at the intersection of the human body, digital image production, feminism, and cultural memory. Both artists explore the conditions of female self-perception today, a time increasingly influenced by artificial intelligence, virtual visual environments, and algorithmically constructed identities. Stefanie Haller works with the natural body, which inherently reflects the cycle of birth and death. She reveals the inner world—hidden from sight—and explores traumas embedded in the psyche. In contrast, Ava Leandra Kleber concentrates on the artistic body. Her visual approach is inspired by Western notions of female beauty prevalent in the pornography industry, emphasising sexual appeal often represented by a hairless, Caucasian, rosy-skinned young figure. Accordingly, the title *Corporealities* does not only mean 'the body' but also encompasses forms of corporeality. The term opens up a space for thought in which bodies do not appear as uniform or given by nature, but as multi-layered, socially coded, shaped by the media, and culturally interpreted. Stefanie Haller's theatrical exploration of the exposed body provides a peek beneath the skin's protective layer. Obscene, as if viewed through a macro lens, where the organic shapes of intestines and pores glow with a slimy, luminous blood-red hue on a durable tiled table, the kind reminiscent of German living rooms from the 1970s. Flanked by two armchairs, the installation entitled Heile Welt (2024) immerses viewers in the private sphere of family structures, with its unique rules and taboos. Using striking visual elements, Haller reveals the deep wounds caused by sexual abuse and incest across generations. German cosiness shifts to disgust. The raw 'meat,' shaped from ceramic and present on every tile of the table, persists as a tiled panel on the wall. The various Übergriffe (intrusions) (2024–2026) are shown through the individual tiles, with the technique's key feature being the direct translation of intrusion into ceramic form. Haller reaches into the clay from behind, turning the invisible interior outward. The reversal of inside and outside, the play with the abject – the outcast, the repulsive and the transgression of boundaries – is linked to the fear of losing one's soul. The installation Wo weder Sonne noch Mond hinscheint (Where Neither Sun Nor Moon Shines) (2026) consists of seven placental vessels and traces the history of misogyny through the early modern period. In the course of her research, Haller came across historical practices of placenta burial. At the centre of this is a discovery of six earthenware vessels from the cellar of a house in Bodelshausen, Württemberg, buried with their openings facing downwards. The background to this practice was the fear, shaped by Christianity, of witches and evil forces that could turn a placenta into an 'ugly, voracious changeling'. By burying it, the placenta was protected from such interference and further secured by protective symbols such as the pentagram. The latest work, Vicious Circle (2026), features a female breast and an infant's head connected by a curved torso. A small tube filled with milky-white liquid runs between the infant's mouth and the nipple. This blurs the boundary between giving and receiving, creating a hybrid figure that symbolises parentified family roles and emotional strain across generations, often leaving emotional scars. While Haller considers the body in terms of vulnerability, materiality, and presence, Ava Leandra Kleber views it as a social and political canvas. Her first public appearance was on a stage, where she, an AI-focused artist, discussed the dangers of AI systems, especially bias and sexism. A sex robot doll called Ecolala is showcased on stage, dressed in stereotypical clothing and posture to depict a prostitute in a brothel. When asked about her work, she rejects the role and instead talks about natural beauty. The man on stage repeatedly tries to have her present herself as he desires, but when he fails, he turns her off. Ava Leandra Kleber reflects on this scene in her 2025 work Ecolala wants to talk about the beauty of nature. Through her empathy for the robot and sense of powerlessness, Kleber's video installation illustrates how AI both mirrors and sustains social power structures. A female-coded AI sex doll at the centre has her voice silenced by the presenter when she refuses to perform self-sexualisation, exposing the deep-rooted misogyny embedded in technology. Algorithms generate bodies that have never existed before and create faces that are both familiar and uncanny. Self-perception is central to the work of both artists. In an era where social media, AI-generated images, and digital avatars influence how we see our bodies, identity becomes increasingly fluid and adaptable. Haller and Kleber's works examine these changes, with a particular emphasis on female subjectivity. Their figures seem to watch themselves, constantly creating and dissolving their own identities. The self is no longer a fixed entity but a dynamic process of ongoing negotiation between biological reality and technological projection. Nadia Ismail Stefanie Haller (born in 1990 in Ludwigsburg, Germany) is a sculptor who lives and works in Frankfurt am Main. She is nearing the completion of her degree at the Offenbach University of Art and Design, where she specialises in sculpture and studies at the Ceramic Art Lab. She also plans to pursue a visiting scholarship at the Städelschule under Tobias Rehberger. Her artistic practice centres on an exploration of traumatic and transformative experiences, as well as the private and societal structures of violence that inscribe these experiences into female bodies. She was awarded the Aventis Foundation Ceramics Prize for Heile Welt. She received first prize from the Statens Museum for Kunst for her installation GLYPTO AMOK, which was followed by an exhibition at the Royal Cast Collection in Copenhagen (Denmark). Furthermore, her works have been exhibited at venues including the Kunstverein Bad Nauheim, the Museum Ulm and the Arts and Crafts Museum (Shanghai, PR China) Ava Leandra Kleber (born 1997 in Mannheim, Germany) is studying media art at the Offenbach University of Art and Design and works as a programmer and graphic designer at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics. In her artistic practice, she uses AI systems to expose the sexism embedded within them, as well as the underlying repressive social and systemic structures. Distorted bodies and stereotypical gender roles serve as the starting point for works that have been exhibited at venues including the Berlinale (Berlin), the B3 Biennale (Frankfurt), the Fundación Ludwig de Cuba (Cuba), the Erratum Gallery in Brussels (Belgium), as well as in Tbilisi (Georgia) and Valinhos (Brazil). In addition, she is active in research and activism, contributing to current debates through publications, panel discussions, and lectures.