Christina Quarles’s first institutional solo exhibition in Germany features paintings and works on paper by Quarles from 2016 onwards, as well as a large-scale painting installation created for the show at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Berlin from 24 March – 17 September 2023.

The artist has developed a site-specific architectural intervention that occupies the entire exhibition space: gauze panels divide the rooms, similar to translucent theatre scrims used to reveal and obscure actors and objects.

Quarles’s paintings are exhibited alongside works from the Nationalgalerie collection. (This link opens in a new tab)., by Absalon, Vito Acconci, Stanley Brouwn, Daniel Buren, Annette Kelm, Nam Jun Paik and Charlotte Posenenske, artists who have also dealt with notions of physical and psychological confinement, and their impact on the representation of the human body. 

The exhibition is accompanied by a bilingual German-English publication, featuring a curatorial essay by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, an extended interview with Christina Quarles and a contribution by Jillian Hernandez, Associate Professor at the Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research, University of Florida, USA