Rachel Fäth
Antiquitäten
Exhibition
January 18 – March 8, 2025
Opening: Saturday, January 18, 6:00-9:00PM


Titled for the former antiquities shop now leased to Kunstverein Kevin Space, Rachel Fäth’s exhibition, Antiquitäten, consists of a series of four sculptures titled Locker 1-4 and a large pane of glass that bisects Kevin Space’s two main rooms, sealing off physical access to the second.

Each of the Locker sculptures was made in a community workshop in New York that Fäth opted for in lieu of a private studio. There, she worked in a shared metal shop during the day, and stored her works-in-progress in an onsite locker overnight. These constraints came to determine the form of the sculptures, as she amalgamated varied scraps of found, gifted, and purchased steel to fill units of space measuring 1 x 1 ½ x 2 ft. Each work is a negative impression of a locker’s interior.

The Lockers are images of volumes available for rent. Densely compressed, they represent the maximal use of minimal available space. In a paradoxical inversion, steel—a material quintessential of modernist architecture’s compulsion to timelessness—has been made contingent, taking on the shape of its container with an ersatz, jagged liquidity. Absented from their storage units and placed on the floor as sculptures in the round, they endure as mementos of tenancy.

The large pane of glass (another protagonist of modernist architecture) won’t be in place beyond the two months this show is up for. During this time, it exhibits Kunstverein Kevin Space’s volume as an image. Superimposed onto this image is the artist’s attempt to fill the space.

– Eli Coplan