MƎTA
January 22 — April 26, 2025
Brussels
Kerstin Brätsch presents MƎTA, an exhibition of new paintings and wallpapers for her inaugural exhibition at Gladstone in Brussels. Expanding upon her Psychics and Para Psychics project from 2022, Brätsch’s abstract compositions employ her painterly practice to probe the body’s psychological, psychical, and social expressions. Appearing to be in a constant state of flux, the works possess their own internal metabolism, transcending a material existence to delve into infinite possibilities of interpretation.
“The antonym of representation is integration.
The resuscitation of representation is integration.
The familiarization of representation is integration.
The life of representation is integration.
In Brussels, a good one hundred years ago, artists of symbolist conviction took integration out of their own times. With no intention of representing the shapes of their present, their art was taking themselves out of it. Integrating away. This was never meant to be obscure. It was destined to be popular.”
—Kerstin Stakemeier
Installation
Work
About
Photo: Andrea Rossetti
Kerstin Brätsch (b. Hamburg, Germany) lives and works between New York and Berlin. Brätsch received an MFA from Columbia University in New York in 2007 and an MFA at Universität der Künste in Berlin in 2008. Brätsch has been the subject of several solo exhibitions at the Casa São Roque in Porto, Portugal (2025); Kunstmuseum Bonn (2025); Munch Museum, Oslo (2025); Fondazione Memmo, Rome (2018) including KAYA, and the Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2017). Brätsch has also participated in group exhibitions at the The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2025, 2023, 2014); Camden Arts Center, London (2020); and was shown at the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York as KAYA (2017). The artist has had work commissioned by several institutions, including Gropius Bau, Berlin (2024); Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany (2023); LUMA Foundation, Café du Parc, Arles, France (2021); and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019). Brätsch’s permanent children’s space, BAUBAU, at the Gropius Bau opened in 2024 and will be an ongoing project over the next several years with plans to expand into an outdoor area. In 2024, Brätsch’s sculpture “Fossil Psychic Stone Mimicry (Palladiana, Mosaico_Bench I)” was commissioned by the New York High Line. For its summer 2026 rooftop commission, the Aspen Art Museum has invited Brätsch to produce a new series of four mosaic benches, which will be on view until March 2027. Brätsch is one of 18 artists commissioned to create a mosaic floor medallion at John F. Kennedy International Airport's new Terminal 6, set to open in 2026 in Queens, New York. Brätsch has been the recipient of many awards, including the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York (2022); the Guenther Peill Prize from the Guenther Peill Foundation, Germany (2020); the Helen Frankenthaler Award for Painting from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York (2020); the Edvard Munch Award, Oslo, Norway (2017); and the August Macke Prize, Germany (2014). Since 2010, Brätsch has also worked collectively under the moniker, KAYA, with artist Debo Eilers. As of 2024, Brätsch holds a professorship for Painting at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg, Germany.
