DURING CPGA - SEMAINE DES GALERIES/ ART BASEL ART WEEK
The work of German painter Tatjana Doll (b. 1970) is characterized by a precise yet uncompromising examination of the visual worlds and symbols of our present day. In large-format paintings, she translates objects, signs, and commodities of everyday life into an immediate, physical form of painting. Brands, consumer goods, institutions, modes of transportation, and political or social symbols are thereby stripped of their apparent self-evidence. Doll is interested in the ambivalence inherent in these things: in the relationship between desire and power, between social belonging and exclusion, and between promise and reality. Her painting invites us to take a fresh look at familiar things from a distance—without judging them, but also without ignoring the social and historical structures that shape our view of them.
With WHY?, the upcoming exhibition at Droste Galladé features a work that exemplifies this approach: From Marlboro to Dresdner Bank (1998). This monumental painting of an airplane (approx. 300 × 1100 cm) connects various social and historical levels—consumption and capital, mobility and freedom, new beginnings, and the ecological consequences of a globalized world. What could once be interpreted as a symbol of the possibility of boundless movement and personal freedom now inevitably embodies the contradictions and consequences of those promises.
As is often the case in Doll’s work, it is not merely the depicted object that is decisive, but the way in which it presents itself to us. Scale, fragmentation, and the materiality of the painting alter our perspective and reveal what is easily overlooked in our everyday use of images and symbols. A familiar motif becomes alien, thereby opening up the possibility of being reinterpreted in its social, political, and historical dimensions.
Nearly three decades after its creation, From Marlboro to Dresdner Bank appears less like a historical document than an image whose meanings continue to shift in relation to the present. In the tension between representational recognizability and painterly dissolution, between media reproduction and physical presence, a central aspect of Doll’s practice is articulated: the critical examination of those visual and material codes through which social reality is constituted and inscribed in our vision.
Doll’s work has been shown in major museums and institutions, including: KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany; LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster, Germany; Kunsthalle Münster, Germany; Picasso-Kunstmuseum Münster, Germany; Kunsthalle Würth, Künzelsau, Germany; Marta Herford, Herford, Germany; Ludwig Forum Aachen, Germany; Kunstmuseum Bochum, Germany; Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany; Kunsthalle Mannheim, Germany; Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Germany; Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich, Germany; Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany; Art Basel Unlimited, Basel, Switzerland; Villa Massimo, Rome, Italy; Villa Almone, Rome, Italy; MoMA PS1, New York, USA; Musée Picasso, Paris, France; Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, France; Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal; CAC – Contemporary Art Centre, Málaga, Spain; Museum Helmond, Helmond, the Netherlands; Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Doll’s works can be found in major collections, including those of: Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, Germany; Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Germany; Musée National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, France; Musée du Chiado, Lisbon, Portugal; Museu de Serralves, Porto, Portugal; Würth Collection, Künzelsau, Germany; FRAC Bretagne, Rennes, France; Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf, Switzerland; City Collection of Paris, France; Fondation Salomon, Annecy, France; Städtische Galerie, Karlsruhe, Germany; Kunsthalle Bremerhaven, Germany; LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster, Germany; Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany.
Doll lives and works in Berlin and is a professor at the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts.
