UWE HENNEKEN: Into the Fire
In a year ablaze with Aries energy—marked by powerful transits, eclipses, and retrogrades—this conversation couldn’t be more timely. Uwe Henneken isn’t just creating; he’s living and feeling through an alchemical process, using fire both as a literal tool and a metaphor for transformation. It hit me—like a bolt—as I woke from an afternoon nap, that liminal space where intuition speaks before the mind catches up. That’s exactly how his work feels: a sudden charge of pure color, a direct transmission that bypasses logic and pulls the viewer in within split seconds. Engaging with his work is to experience that moment of ignition, the kind that alters perception in an instant. And isn’t that exactly what this year demands? The cosmos is screaming for transformation, self-assertion, and release—or in other words… burn! Burn it all down, baby, so the new can be born and rise from the ashes! (screams in witch) Henneken is literally working through transmutation, wielding fire—one of the … Read more
Curated by GIRLS on tour
Last time we spoke with Laetitia Duveau, founder of the highly influential platform Curated by GIRLS, she had just moved to Sintra, Portugal, after years of building a powerful creative movement in Berlin. Her latest project? A spring tour across Germany with three incredible female-fronted acts blending trip-hop, pop, and electro, including her own band FreeFreeDomDom, founded in 2017. You’ve gone from Berlin’s buzzing art scene to the dreamy landscapes of Sintra, which was also the time of our last exchange here on Coeur & Art —how has that shift influenced the way you curate, but also how you approach this tour? Moving from Berlin to Sintra felt like shifting from high-speed intensity to a more organic, intuitive flow. It was a real cataclysm in terms of changing habits—I found myself drawn back to the essence of movement, both physically and creatively. I reconnected with dance, something that has always been part of my artistic DNA, and I started making … Read more
Zina Al-Shukri: An Unveiling
When I think of Zina Al-Shukri’s rich and overflowing practice, I imagine her sitting calmly with a silent smile on a massive boulder in an ancient canyon, surrounded by wind, knowing, and the desert. Rooted in an ancient lineage yet unbound by tradition, Al-Shukri’s work embodies an expansive interplay of all the elements, harmonized to evoke magic through creation. With a foundation in indigenous Babylonian heritage and a life shaped by migration and challenges, her practice consistently defies the conventions of the patriarchal art world and outdated Eurocentric paradigms. Her work reveals a dynamic interplay between body, mind, and cosmic energy, inseparable from her devotion to truth and process. This transformative force fuels her ability to create spaces and works that heal, connect, and transcend. In her spiral dance of spirituality, creativity, and resilience, Al-Shukri reminds us of art’s enduring power to change the world. Let’s join her dance. Zina Al-Shukr about Bodies in Orbit: Portraiture Between Ritual and Abstraction … Read more
GØNEJA ✷
unveils contemporary gates of initiation With a collection of works that encompass depictions of ancestral body rituals, magical sigils as sculptural objects, and nude embodiments of esoteric symbolism, the Berlin-based photographer and sculptor Gøneja ✷ explores the ancient practice of initiation, traversing the enigmatic terrain of Egyptian and Western mythology and divinatory practices. His new solo exhibition, “Thresholds,” presented at the Organ Kritischer Kunst gallery in Berlin, unravels the intricate power of this archaic lore and unfolds as a culmination piece, following the artist’s previous series “Rituals” (2020) and “Mercurial” (2022). By forming a trilogy that delves into the alchemical depths of human experience, these works deliver a potent contemporary commentary and a call for reflection on the present human condition. Engraved with sigils, Gøneja ✷’s sculptures transcend the limitations of language, whereby meticulously crafted symbols, drawn from Alchemical and Kabbalistic texts, serve as portals to dimensions where words falter and archetypal messages become the language of the soul. In current times of … Read more
PENNY SLINGER
How does one write about such an important and influential artist, author and feminist like Penny Slinger? A Way-sharer in the Arts and the Art of Transformation alike? A fearless and strong woman and artist whose confidence is effortless and natural, who paved paths where there were none before with her photographs, sculptures, and as an author since publishing her first book 50% The Visible Woman. in 1969. Countless have walked on the trail she left and they will without doubt continue to do so in future. Penny Slinger always refused to be defined and put into a neat box society still wants women to be in. Space is her place which is infinite, thank goddess! While researching I found a recent interview from September 2022 on The Last Bohemians Podcast* which I highly recommend. A few things she said in this conversation with the host journalist Kate Hutchinson stuck with me ever since. To me they embody the power and magic that defines Penny Slinger and her … Read more
MONIKA DORNIAK
The phenomenological maps of… Paintings, living minerals, sculptures, music scores and performances are some of the formats Monika Dorniak uses to weave an elaborate web of narratives, archetypes and alchemising artworks, coexisting with her ongoing activist and community building vocation based in Berlin. Her multidisciplinary works not only blur the boundaries between mediums but also traverse curious territories within psychology, anthropology, sound and witchcraft. In her exhibition at Hošek Contemporary – ‘the ease with which [a] may be distorted under the action of [b]’, Monika explores natural phenomenons and pressing social shifts, using living and local natural agents to question the current sociodynamics such as displacement and solastalgia. Drawing upon her beliefs in the necessity of decolonizing science, folklores and anthropology, combined with a strong academic background and feminist approach, Monika Dorniak invites a dialogue around the cultural biases that shape our understandings of ecosystem exploitation, migration, intergenerational trauma and ancestral knowledge. As part of her mission to build and … Read more
MARTINE POPPE
Peering at the Edge of Daydream Since interviewing the Norwegian artist Martine Poppe, I have been reflecting on her answers and also her well-known cloud paintings, which I first encountered a few years ago when the Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery opened in Berlin Mitte (and which today form part of the UK Government Art Collection). Among the thoughts passing through my mind, I wondered how perception works on encountering something that first seems smooth, light, well, cloud-like and “easy”, but on hindsight contracts as through a needle’s eye into a very haptic world of dense matter informed by an “origin narrative that contains the smell of the sea and the restoration of polyester fabric”. You didn’t expect that, did you? My musing led me to the concept of density expressed in the layers of meaning to be found in Poppe’s work, as in the case of her latest “happy loud in your face” flower depictions. They too can seem “easy” to … Read more
MONET CLARK
Rise of Raven Woman Mid July this year I received a message on my socials from the eco-feminist and performance artist Monet Clark: “Esther, from your content I believe you will be inspired by this…” followed by an invitation to watch her collaboration with the legendary performance artist Linda Mary Montano in which Linda interviewed Monet about her new ideas, works in progress. They were also discussing other artists including Karen Finley, Penny Slinger, Jennifer Locke and a collaborative work of Monet’s with the media art pioneer John Sanborn, (I come back to this one later), “to further elucidate the ideas presented”. Said ideas covered: “Illness as Kundalini awakening, misogyny in the medical establishment, female Hollywood film tropes, the Völva, busting the #madonnawhorecomplex, the feminine principle, familial decolonization, holistic theory, in depth eco-feminist ideologies” to name a few. To top it off the whole thing was launched by The Interior Beauty Salon! To say I was inspired is a severe understatement. Beside Monet Clark’s works and her brilliant mind, I … Read more
OSHANTELL MARTIN
One, Two, Free Ever since coming across the work of the visual artist and philosopher Shantell Martin, I’ve always had to think of a sticker on my fridge in my old kitchen in Berlin—a sticker that quoted a remark by the German/Swiss painter Paul Klee, whose “Paul Klee Notebooks” are considered as important to modern art as Leonardo da Vinci’s “Treatise on Painting” was for the Renaissance. The quote – “A line is a dot that went for a walk” – is as absurdly logical and simultaneously mind-blowing and liberating as Shantell Martin’s work. “Serious” art theorists might ask how could I possibly mention Shantell’s work in the same context as the towering artist that Klee unarguably was, but personally I find it appropriate to do so: Klee was not only known for his dry humour and his sometimes even childlike perspective (how could this possibly be a bad thing for an artist?) but also for his personal moods and … Read more
MICHEL LAMOLLER
Anthropogenic Mass “Anthropogenic Mass” is the title of Michel Lamoller’s upcoming exhibition at Ravestijn Gallery in Amsterdam and refers to a study conducted by the Weizman Institute based in Tel Aviv that states that we have reached the point in which all man-made things on planet earth have the same weight as all natural biomass. Let that sink in for a moment. Concrete tops the list of manmade mass. As it is used for building and infrastructure, it is the second most used substance in the world after water. The “man-made landscapes” Michel Lamoller focuses on in his latest works wouldn’t exist without concrete. A few months ago I visited Lamoller in his studio and had the opportunity to see some of his new work before it was shipped to Amsterdam for his solo show. While gazing at the largest photographic sculpture depicting the Japanese megacity Osaka I distinctively remember feeling I was losing my balance for a few seconds, … Read more
GØNEJA ✷
and the liberating essence of alchemy Photographs and totemic sculptures merge in Gøneja ✷’s most recent solo show Mercurial, presented at the Organ Kritischer Kunst gallery in Berlin. The secretive, ancient practice of alchemy is subtly revealing itself through each piece, emerging as a contemporary interpretation of the hermetic principle As Above, So Below. Alchemy is the process of purification, freeing oneself from the limitations of a certain physical state, healing, becoming whole. Gøneja ✷’s portraits alternate between an arcane, yet playful intimacy and an enigmatic distance. Every subject emanates the transcendence of duality, moving fluidly through the ethereal and physical realms, becoming a hologram of the liberated mind. Portraying individuals who have released themselves from the identification of gender binaries or common social classifications is an act of amplifying the collective churning towards healing. In contrast with the abstract nature of the photographs, the Berlin-based artist presents physical totems built by cutting and assembling left-overs of metal pieces and … Read more
Kostas Valioutis
RADIUM PALACE Please tell us a bit about yourself and how you are defining your work? Or in other words, if you needed to explain what you do to someone “outside” the art world, what is the essence it comes down to in your oeuvre and why? I was born and raised in Lesvos, Greece. I studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts. Since then, I have been working as an art teacher in Greek public schools. In my artistic practice, I research myth and physicality, spirituality and paradox. In other words, how is a mythical event interpreted today, if the viewers can identify themselves with the myth and what they can feel. If we talk about today’s artists creating and contributing healing spaces and works that can transform society and restricted mind sets…how can they reach the collective that is not aware of being a collective? This question reminds me of my parents’ experience when they visited … Read more