Deborah Schamoni

For MƎTAATEM, Kerstin Brätsch has transformed Kunstmuseum Bonn into a living organism of painting. The central starting point is the relationship between painting and the body on a physical, psychological and social level. Like a portal to another world, visitors pass through a kind of labyrinth of color, light and sound or step in front of a suggestive wallpaper with mirrored motifs reminiscent of the inkblot tests of the psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach.

With new productions and over 100 works from the past 15 years, the exhibition provides a broad overview of the artist’s practice, complemented by collaborative projects. Among them, KAYA, with American sculptor Debo Eilers, where issues of identity, hierarchy, and power are played out through shared practice. KAYA traverses the boundaries between painting and sculpture, fusing both genres into a hybrid artistic approach. In MƎTAATEM, KAYA is showing the remnants of their KAYAHÖLLEKÖLLE project, works from the Orakle Painting and Catacomb lamp series, their life-size children’s playhouse KAYA’s House, and videos of two performances enacting KAYA’s Story of Healing the Sick Painting – a testament to this ever-evolving, ever-becoming body.

The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue, forthcoming in early 2026.

Curated by Friederike Fast