Movements as Monuments: Rita Ackermann at La Triennale di Milano

In the chalk paintings that Ackermann has developed since 2013, the process of accumulation is countered by a destabilising self-eradication. This tactic marks a new development in a progression of radical artistic breakthroughs that Ackermann has introduced into her paintings over the past years. Neither absent nor present, the painted figure resides in an unstable state. Rather than abandon figuration for abstraction, the artist aims for an ambiguous interstitial zone, literally blurring the lines that divide one from the other.

The paintings, monumental in scale, are based as much upon a bouquet of arabesques as they are upon the underlying presence of ghostlike figures. Meanwhile, large parts of the canvas are left empty. This distinctive approach to composition expands beyond a singular frame, out into several other paintings of the same series. Hanging in pairs, or opposite one another, the paintings form a chapel-like environment and become windows into an abstract world, subtly inhabited by human figures.