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ABOUT
Bad Machines
I first saw one of Steinmacher’s Manifestos, consisting of a lonely yellow parasol appearing to independently rotate, canary sail’s hypnotically twirling above a concrete chunk shaped like a helmet cut midway through, like a mad dandelion sprung from a decapitation. I was touched by how bad this machine was, how whatever task it had been designed for, it seemed pathetically ineligible. It seemed to be a machine with no destination or use, getting dizzy in its dogged pursuit of a sisyphean circle and this felt a little tragic, and a lot relatable. Perhaps what makes Miriam Steinmacher’s instruments special is their very failure of function, where the emphasis isn’t on efficiency but expression and in their aptitude for unsteadiness, they end up resembling people more than machines. Her works are often composites of the detritus of everyday doings, things which unconsciously accumulate, umbrellas, spoons, mirrors, to-do lists, pots and pans, and then some more unique items, such as organ pipes, which suggest another kind of ritual, and the contemporary trend of self-improvement as another kind of religion. Her work often questions the social fascination with progress and accumulation at the expense of life, by embodying inverse relations to a capitalist tendency of dehumanization. Seen again in Fountainheads - composed of gurgling fountains and reclaimed mattresses, arranged in stoic columns like nymphs bathing in a fleshy sculpture garden. Again, the viewer is asked to challenge their own corporeality, to suspend their disbelief for the anthropomorphisation of object, because if you look at it one way, what are people if not mumbling, padded towers of water? Or in Rippled Echoes, where organ pipes pierced through pots chirped, spit and sung in the space, giving the little kitchen machines competitive voices. All of Steinmacher’s works contemplate the social arrangement of people through objecthood, while reflecting a contemporary paradox of the prosumer, wherein the producer and consumer become indistinguishable, and like our parasol, enter the sisyphean spin cycle.
It is this feeling which is evoked in her works time and again, which feels so true to the contemporary, of continuing to spin without course, of living in the tide of an impossible motor, but also of the fragile beauty and movement of that moment, which is to say life.
by Alex Thake
CONTACT miriamsteinmacher@live.de
CV
1992
born in Flörsheim am Main
2021
diploma with distinction, University of Art and Design Offenbach,
art department with Kitty Kraus (sculpture), Prof. Dr. Juliane Rebentisch (philosophy), Eike König (graphic design) & Frank Witzel (text)
2019 - 2020
Athens School of Fine Art
Living and working in Frankfurt am Main.
SCHOLARSHIPS / RESIDENCIES
2023
Artist in Residency, Museum for Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul
Annual fellowship Stiftung Künstlerhilfe Frankfurt
2022
project funding by Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst
2021
NEUSTART KULTUR- stipend of the Stiftung Kunstfonds
Theory Prize through the sponsorship of the Schleicher Foundation
2020
project scholarship Hessische Kultur Stiftung, Wiesbaden
2018 & 2019
nominated for „Rundgrangspreis Künstlerhilfe Frankfurt e.V“
EXHIBITIONS
2023
Heavy Rotations_ MagmaMaria, Offenbach am Main (G)
Nachbilder, Frappant Galerie, Hamburg (G)
Jeans Vorhang, Projektraum Elbestraße.10, Basis Frankfurt e.V (G)
Saturn oppositions, Offenbach am Main (G)
Am Wegesrand gehen, die Uhr tickt, Magma Maria, Offenbach am Main (G)
2022
REMEDY, Cream Athens, TAF Foundation, Athens (G)
AMUSE GUEULE, OKAY Initiative Space, Athens (G)
Literatur und Leichtigkeit, Studio294, Frankfurt am Main (R)
Katze im Sack, Projektraum Elbestraße.10, Basis Frankfurt e.V (G)
Ora Forma, BlumenOraOra, Frankfurt am Main (G)
Of Second Glances, MagmaMaria, Offenbach am Main (R)
2021
HAUS WIEN, Kunstverein Haus, Vienna (G)
Leasing Vol.1, AutohausAutohaus, Kassel (G)
stone in a riverbed, MagmaMaria, Offenbach am Main (S)
window smooches, MagmaMaria, Offenbach am Main (G, A)
Sugar Tip, flowershop, Offenbach am Main (G)
2020
internal fantasies, diegrotte, Offenbach am Main (G)
Edeltropfen, Finowfurt (G)
Fast Forward Threshold On Until Then I Levitate, Fonda Space, Leipzig (S)
Trampelpfad Der Gefühle zwei: Jetzt erst recht!- Edition, Frankfurt (G)
Trampelpfad Der Gefühle eins: Agapi Edition, Filopappou, Athens (G)
Skrupel, Kerameikos, Athens (G)
2019
I caught a glimpse of you on the escalator stairs, Projektraum Elbestraße.10, Basis Frankfurt e.V (G)
Die Krise, Offenbach (Kollaboration mit Kathrin Baumgartner) (P)
Blockadia Tiefsee, Gallerikit, Trondheim, Norwegen (G)
Junge Kunst im Garten, Sommerfest der Opelvillen Rüsselsheim (G)
Cuore croccante, Calle Ramo III Piave, Venice (G)
2018
above and against: random, Projektraum Elbestraße.10, Basis Frankfurt e.V (R), (C)
lounger, Universitätsgalerie Oktogon, Wuppertal (S)
eight corners comfort, Universitätsgalerie Oktogon, Wuppertal (G)
(S) Soloexhibition; (G) Groupexhibition; (R) Reading;
(C) Catalogue; (P) Performance; (A) Auction
IMPRINT
Inhaltlich verantwortlich gemäß Paragraph 55 Abs. 2 RStV:
Miriam Steinmacher
Seilerstraße 15
60313 Frankfurt am Main