Misfits

Since opening the gallery in 2022, Thomas Grünfeld’s misfits have made recurring appearances in my dreams. The most recent such occurrence was on the evening of Saturday September 7th, 2024. The very next morning, whilst walking around New York City’s iconic Battery Maritime Building for Independent’s 20th Century, third edition, I bumped into Michael Janssen. An uncanny coincidence perhaps? The very person who could help connect me to the root of my dream? I have known Michael for many years, right from the very beginning of my days in the art world. So I jumped right in and proceeded to explain that Grünfeld’s misfits keep appearing in my dreams and I had been meaning to ask if he might be able to connect me with him. (As I recall Michael had shown Grünfeld’s work in his Cologne gallery, right about the time we first met.) Running into Michael at this very moment, if not a coincidence, was certainly serendipitous and meant to be. Michael gave me Thomas’s number. I was now in a position to make contact. I wrote Thomas for the first time ten days later, on September 19th, 2024, to tell him, Michael had kindly given me his number and that his misfits keep appearing in my dreams. I went on to explain my first encounters with his work and how they have stayed with me ever since. I was a little nervous to begin with, as I did not hear back from Thomas right away. For a few days I thought I’d been given the wrong number. The image that had popped up on the WhatsApp profile was that of a middle-aged black woman, which clearly did not fit his description. When I finally did make contact, I was enlightened. That WhatsApp image was of Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Grünfeld’s literal US translated namesake, an American Diplomat who served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations. I was by this point laughing hysterically hearing this story from the horse’s mouth in German accented English, my anxiety soon turned to jovial calm. Grünfeld’s whimsical sense of humor aligned with my own. After chatting with Thomas further and exploring other bodies of his work with which I was less familiar, it was abundantly obvious that we had many complementary interests, for instance, the early work of Neil Jenney. Another emerged pretty quickly as well, Richard Artschwager, one of my favorite artists. It was clear to me, Thomas and I not only had a similar sense of humor but shared a collective aesthetic sensibility too. Thomas then went on to explain how the misfits were conceived in 1988. Having seen a curious couple, a taxidermied diorama, in the window of a shop named Roosen, in the city of Cologne. (Right next door to the König Bookstore.) He told me he had to have it, to show it! This in essence was the first misfit, a found object, a readymade, if you like. This diorama depicted a Bisamratte (Muskrat in English) fornicating with a cockerel, the misfits are (born out of) the offspring, of that unusual mating scene. He first exhibited the misfits in the legendarily trailblazing Karsten Schubert Gallery, London in 1990. I first saw them at the Saatchi Gallery on Boundary Road in 1997, the same year as Sensation at the Royal Academy, for context. I was lucky enough to get up close and personal with them whilst working at Christie’s in London in 1998. At that point in time Christie's had just begun an experiment, splitting the Modern and Contemporary departments in two. 1970 being the cut off and, in the spirit of being innovative, the auction preview took place away from the historic St James HQ. The location chosen, Berry House, a former brewery, a large multi-floored derelict warehouse on Clerkenwell Road. On the top floor, in a skylighted space, I was given the task of installing three works that had been curated together. Damien Hirst’s Alone Yet Together, 1993. A wall mounted cabinet containing multiple fish in Perspex cases in formaldehyde solution, which I placed onto shelves within. And Maurizio Cattelan’s Turisti, 1997. An installation of 12 taxidermied pigeons which were installed by their feet gripping onto the rafters in the skylight and Thomas Grünfeld’s 3 misfits,1994. Specifically paired animal combines: fawn/bat, eel/turkey and pheasant/fox placed in a single vitrine all next to one and other. Hirst’s work felt dangerous, about death or mortality, I had to handle with protective gloves as to not get the highly toxic formaldehyde liquid on my skin. Cattelan’s work was a brilliantly executed gag, turisti simply translates as tourists. Need I say more? Grünfeld’s work intrigued me more. What were these things? They were strangely familiar; I physically handled them myself and picked them up to place them in their vitrine. The fur was fur, the feathers were feathers, and the wings, well, were wings and all seamless in their application. They felt like hunting trophies, from a C.S. Lewis novel or from around the Red Forest near Chernobyl. Was Thomas Grünfeld Dr. Dolittle or Dr. Frankenstein? It was only more recently that I developed the sense to notice the parings of animals play on the emotions. The bat is considered vermin and a fawn cute. An eel is slimy and gross, a turkey very digestible and a pheasant is beautiful with vibrant plumage, and a fox is cunning. We have preconceived ideas about an animal’s character. So this is a play on high and low, cultural stereotypes and links to Artschwager’s fascination of using common materials to blur the lines between the real world and its representation. The misfits are an ongoing series. Grünfeld has produced three to four a year since 1989. They almost always find their way to private collections and otherwise institutions. Grünfeld made four misfits this year for this exhibition and in addition to those, six others dated from 2009-2024 are on view. It total 10 sculptures, never seen before in the United States For this exhibition the animal pairings are more ambiguous than ever (in regards to our preconceived ideas of their character). The more the lines are blurred the more they play into the uncanny. On interpreting my dreams further, they have started to make sense. It’s as if Grünfeld has willed these misfits into reality. The impossible had become probable. The misfits which Thomas created as sculptural collages have now been generated into videos using AI. Is the algorithm powered by my unconscious? Videos of animal amalgams similar to his sculptural collages keep popping up in my Instagram feed. They have become hyperreal. This will be Grünfeld first New York solo exhibition in 25 years. The poised hypodermic of the Empire State - Martin Amis It’s an absolute privilege to be showing the work of Thomas Grünfeld, a dream come true! Thomas Grünfeld was born in 1956 in Leverkusen, Germany. He lives and works in Cologne. He studied at the Kunstakademie in Stuttgart from 1978-1982. He was Professor for sculptor at the esteemed Kunstakademie Düsseldorf until very recently from 2004-2025. Grünfeld’s work has been the subject of multiple solo exhibitions at galleries and museums around the globe, and to name a few; Massimo de Carlo, Milan/London/Paris/Seoul; Wentrup,Berlin/Venice; Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago; Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York; Jay Gorney Modern Art, New York; Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne; Karsten Schubert Ltd, London, Kunstmuseum, Stuttgart; Michael Janssen, Cologne; Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Genoa; Jousse Seguin, Paris; Galeria OMR, Mexico City; Thomas Cohn, Sao Paulo; Sprüth Magers, Cologne/Munich.

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