TABLEAUX DE TISSUS

Karina Bisch

11 June — 30 July, 2023

PS proudly presents the new exhibition Tableaux de Tissus by Karina Bisch. Karina Bisch moves within a number of different artistic genres. Shifting between applied and free art in her works, she pushes boundaries again and again, borrowing characteristics from various disciplines. In doing so, she draws on the shapes and colours prevalent in 20th- century Modernism and examines its supposed universality. In her art, Bisch explores what those re-contextualised forms in particular could mean today if conceptualised beyond their symbolic character – and, in this way, asks what role can be played by art today. By transferring historically predetermined shapes and colours onto clothing and textiles, she combines aspects of artistic works and concepts with everyday life. Rooted in the idea that her garments are works of art in their own right, she applies her paintings to the textiles directly, making them into wearable art: peinture-à-porter - the double status of a painting as wearable art. 

Bisch’s later works are often based on diagonal grids in which the artist creates her compositions through different-coloured rhombuses. In this way, some of these geometric grids are superimposed with entirely abstract forms while other works give rise to floral motifs. Bisch takes a systematic approach to developing and implementing her compositions, yet her works all aim to combine art and life and are infused with a sense of playfulness and spontaneity: “In both chess and painting, the diagonal is the inclination towards risk and madness. I want to involve painting in this oblique adventure.” 

Karina Bisch was born in 1974 in Paris, where she continues to live today. She studied Fine Arts at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris and at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. She was artist in residence at the Amsterdamer Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten between 2005 and 2007 as well as working at La Box in Bourges. In 2017, together with Nicolas Chardon, she founded publishing house CONNOISSEURS. After she was featured in group exhibitions in Italy and Australia back in the 1990s, her works were shown at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Paris) in 2021, the Museum of Arts and Design (New York) in 2022, and as part of a solo exhibition together with Nicolas Chardon at MAC VAL (Vitry-sur-Seine) in 2022.