Olga Chernysheva at Galerie Volker Diehl, Berlin

Olga Chernysheva is having a solo-exhibition ‘Houseplant is leaving’ at Galerie Volker Diehl, the artist’s seventh with the gallery since 2009. The show includes paintings, works on paper, and video art.

Exhibition dates: April 24 - July 12, 2024

Olga Chernysheva is famous for her subtle rethinking of everyday life. Her method involves juxtaposing mundane circumstances and subtle shades of emotion, an effect also visible in her works from the Venice Biennale (2001, 2015) and Manifesta (2014). She is interested in random, peripheral fragments of both the surrounding world and our inner lives.

The new project at Galerie Volker Diehl differs from these and many other of Chernysheva’s projects, with their focus on human diversity and varying perceptions of beauty, joy, relaxation. Here, we do not see human protagonists. The exhibition begins with a farewell: we see a spotlight shining into empty space, costumed figures bowing before exiting a stage, a trash bag filled with empty popcorn containers in cinema. It’s all over. The sense of departure, the feeling of completing something pleasant and comfortable are the heart of the exhibition.

Curated by Shenja Kiseleva-Afflerbach