Tiergarten, Berlin
Zilla Leutenegger
Plein Soleil
JudinGalerie Judin is pleased to present Plein soleil, Zilla Leutenegger's first solo exhibition with the gallery. Seizing on the light-filled architecture of our main exhibition space, once built as a printing hall for the Tagesspiegel newspaper, the artist brings together installations, video projections, and monotypes—transforming the space into a sequence of experimental environments. The exhibition unfolds as a psychological and spatial journey through the life of the artist's alter ego Z, focusing on light as a central thematic and formal element, not only conceptually but also architecturally, as the prominent skylights decisively shape the perception of the space. The psychogram that Leutenegger draws with her installation foregrounds the dialectic of light and shadow. Rather than presenting her alter ego as a fully articulated subject—the metaphorical source of light—the artist reveals its traces: the shadows cast by a life, its gestures and moods. The absent figure is suggested through fragments and impressions and we, the viewers, are invited to participate in the meaning-making process. In the course of this guessing game the spectators’ own projections and associations thus become part of the work, extending the field of shadows. So let's immerse ourselves in this encounter! Like close friends or family members would, we enter the character's "home" through the laundry room, a transitional and intimate space that introduces the domestic cosmos of the protagonist. We circumvent white trousers suspended on a clothesline, evoking the absent figure's body while delineating its contours. Throughout the installation, poetic moments of distraction and concentration, of life enjoyment and endurance, unfold. A tone of cheerful melancholy pervades the exhibition, operating almost as an acoustic undercurrent. Monotypes—unique prints produced from mirror-inverted painted templates—outline interior spaces and serve as a counterpoint to the exterior world, which is primarily defined by incident light and the resulting play of shadows.