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VOTIVPFERDE

William N. Copley and Ambra Durante, one born in 1919, the other in 2000, are two artists, who belong to the group of Self-Taught-Artists, who draw their pictorial themes directly from their own (experienced) lives with the highest level of artistry – which increases the enjoyment of their works considerably.

Ambra Durante says: “My creation should be an attempt to reflect in a way the human consciousness and thinking. I deal with the feelings of the individual in society, with loneliness, idiosyncrasy and all that, which as a human being – often – perhaps – no longer – always – is witnessed.”

And the ever-confident Copley like no other artist his generation has illuminated the relationship between man and woman artistically: how all relationships break and are ambiguous in the deepest sense, how the telling of pictorial stories contributes to the ironic pleasure in the subject, all this can be experienced in his pictures.

At the same time, in cooperation with International Wardrobe Berlin, we are showing a herd of votive horses from Poshnia in the Indian State of Gujarat. The clay figures, created by hand from terracotta, serve as symbolic offerings to the gods: one can wish for health, material things are also typical, or one demonstrates one’s gratitude for an already fulfilled wish with a horse.

“There is art, and there is art. One is made by humans, who studied at Academies, it is shown in galleries and museums and makes a lot of money at auctions. The other is created in seclusion. It does not have an artistic claim and is at most discovered as art by chance. Both versions require obsession. Both can be magical.”
Johanna Adorján, Süddeutsche Zeitung Feuilleton, December 23, 2022