Artist talk: Esther Kläs

Esther Kläs has developed a distinctive visual language which challenges contemporary sculptural norms and discourses. Using malleable materials that can be worked by hand, Kläs is an artist who maintains an intimate physical relationship with her work. She is attentive to her inner experience as well as to external reality, and her sculptures and works on paper appear at once as mysterious presences and projections of a poetic imagination. It is only in slowing down that we notice the intuitive physicality of the gestures that shape her work. She always returns to questions about the essence of things, to openness and the flexibility of the mind. Her sculptures, drawings and performances are suggestions of relations and relationships, of being and seeing. There is a generosity and fearlessness that goes into her work that encourages us to think for ourselves. More recently, Kläs has collaborated with choreographers and dancers to create performances and videos that pick up on the themes running through her practice.

Esther Kläs (b. 1981, Mainz, Germany) lives and works in Barcelona. Recent exhibitions include Esther Kläs & Princ Gholam: All Living Things, Halfhouse, Barcelona, Spain (2022-23); Maybe it can be different, Fondazione Giuliani, Rome, Italy (2020); The subtle interplay between the I and the me, Kolumba, Cologne, Germany (2020); Start, Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Israel (2019); ola/wave, Proyecto AMIL, Lima, Peru (2017-2018); Our Reality, Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania, Italy (2015-2016); Whatness, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany (2015); Girare Con Te, Marino Marini Museum, Florence, Italy (2014); Esther Kläs: Better Energy, MoMA PS1, NY, USA (2012).

The presentation is organized by the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and takes place in connection with the exhibition I will watch with you of David Fesl and Esther Kläs at the Cursor Gallery – Center for Contemporary Arts Prague, 15 May – 7 July 2024.