Events/Openings

The British artist Ann Noël is defiant. Above all she defies time and classification. Celebrating her seventieth birthday with her fourth solo exhibition at EMERSON Gallery Berlin, the artist seems to take mischievous pleasure in emphasizing this defiance with a playfulness and creative range which would be astounding for an artist half her age.

A decades-long contributor to the Fluxus movement, Noël has continually gone her own way in the face of the strong personalities and artistic positions of her artist friends and associates. On the other hand, her current exhibition “Potpourri” offers a glimpse of the long-term concerns Noël shares with Fluxus, including: textual games and word play, an obsession with culinary experiments as well as sex and other bodily pleasures. Although the emphasis is on graphic work, the artist’s forté, this is presented in a mixed media extravaganza that includes paintings, textiles and assemblage. The show features new works created especially for the birthday celebration peppered with older works revealing the artist’s continual development.

The result has the flavor of summing up a long and prolific career but, wrinkling up her nose dismissively, the artist makes clear that this is anything but her intent: “I am not looking to summarize or give an overview of anything. That sounds too much like something is coming to an end whereas I would like to think that I am just gearing up …” The viewer will be glad to hear that, wishing Ann Noël many happy returns …