S1 Artspace was pleased to present a solo exhibition of new commissioned work by the Berlin based artist Eva Berendes. People and Events will be the Decoration presented a series of new sculptures displayed across the gallery against the backdrop of a new large-scale curtain installation in what she referred to as a loose ‘parcours’ of objects. People and Events will be the Decoration was Berendes’ first solo exhibition in a UK public venue.

Eva Berendes’ practice draws on the history and language of abstract painting in conjunction with the application of craft and applied arts. Her works frequently refer to decorative objects usually associated with domestic settings such as curtains, screens, throws and wall hangings. Dominant surfaces are exposed through a subtle process of concealment and disclosure. The making process is uncovered and in doing so Berendes destabilised any rigid understanding of the object. Berendes creates work that simultaneously suggests both simplicity and complexity – it is her integration of both the fine and applied arts that highlights the contradictions, tensions and ultimate validity of this division by bringing them both to the fore.

People and Events will be the Decoration included a series of new sculptural objects that, in their presentation, resembled the stratified spatial arrangement of a theatrical stage set. This form of presentation underlined the two-dimensional nature of Berendes’ sculpture, which predominantly have both a front and back, closely connecting them to the concept of painting. However, unlike traditional painting, Berendes paid equal consideration to the back of her works and in doing so transformed the relationship of image and image-support into a more symbiotic relationship. The main protagonists in the exhibition were three intensely coloured freestanding screens fabricated from perforated sheet metal supported by a fine brass framework from the rear. Set against the backdrop of a large silk curtain, these objects faced the viewer as they entered the gallery, whilst the ‘back’ of the objects disclosed the making and construction process.

Two expansive sculptures assembled from white card suggested architectural fragments or retail display units. These thin temporary-like structures with exposed hollow interiors implied a mock-up or prop. Marked out across the surface was a grid drawing that suggests industrial tiles. The site of real ceramic, however, was occupied by found vases and jugs, whose coloured figures were ‘displayed’ on the sculptures. Whether these structures functioned as a plinth or stage for the ceramics, or conversely, whether the ceramics are intended as decorative pretext for the sculptures, is left unclear.

The plaster reliefs in the exhibition were purposefully left raw and under-determined revealing their production process by exposing the imprint of the board on which they were cast. Their simplicity recalled fragments of brutalist architecture and formed a discreet counterpoint to the other works in the exhibition.