6 ½ Weeks – Kate Mackeson

With an exposed or a concealed seam, multi-coloured pieces of faux leather form a whole. In part they are upholstered, in part swiftly sewn together, and the resulting objects together go to make up a circular shape. They are reminiscent of lips, body parts that are signally different in terms of what they symbolize. British artist Kate Mackeson (born 1985) also uses these faux leather surfaces as the basis for images – she paints them and adds collected and cut-out photographs. They provide insights into her conceptual world and can become a venue for unequal power relations or current political debates.

In the Antechamber exhibition they are brought together with wrought-iron works that Mackeson manipulates, distorts, or which she grinds until it is as sharp as a knife’s edge. Once defined by all manner of behavioural rules, the antechamber is now more a place where you wait, a place between the inner and outer worlds, where different things encounter one another, opportunities arise, and the outcome is uncertain.

Antechamber is the first solo institutional show by British artist Kate Mackeson. She is currently a scholarship holder of Neue Folkwang Residence, an international programme that was launched in 2021 by Museum Folkwang and Neuer Essener Kunstverein and is awarded each year to two artists. In the framework of a five-month working stay in Essen, Mackeson has developed several art works that she is now presenting at Museum Folkwang in the form of an installation.