STAR THAT CARRIES YOUR NAME / Gašper Kunšič
With his exhibition Star that carries your name, Gašper Kunšič gives the interior of the Kunsthalle Willingshausen the outward appearance of a half-timbered façade, through which one seems to look. The spaces between the timbers are violet, like the dark night in which the stars become visible. The German pop song Ein Stern, der deinen Namen trägt (“A star that bears your name”) celebrates these stars and inspired the exhibition’s title. Not only the romantic gesture is addressed here, but also the idea of transformation into a star after death.
Within the compartments of his timber framework, Gašper Kunšič places small paintings. They invite viewers to come close, creating a sense of intimacy. A letter, a hand, and a torso can be discerned in the small-format paintings. Small round images, the tondi, depict stars surrounded by text along their edges. The floor is black, mirroring the lines of the walls, while a soft veil beneath the ceiling gently dims the light.
It is natural to think of icons when looking at these small-scale images and considering their process of creation. In Orthodox tradition, an icon is more than a picture: it is regarded as a “window to heaven” – a visible presence of the invisible. The icon painter is not a free artist but a servant of the sacred. He prays while he works, and every step, from sanding the surface to the final application of gold, carries symbolic meaning. Yet this does not mean that the spirit materializes within the icon. Icons do not contain the saint as a vessel holds its contents; rather, they refer to the saint, as a window refers to the light behind the glass.
Gašper Kunšič creates queer icons. During his absorbed, concentrated working process – in which the choice of colors plays a major role – he listens to and hums along with pop songs and queer anthems. For a long time, the primary colors of his work were red, blue, and white, as found in the flags of the pan-Slavic states. Today, these colors have merged into various shades of violet – the color of recognition within the queer community. With these tones, he opens a space for people with diverse identities and ways of life. His icons are windows onto a night sky under which the rules of the day are suspended. He thus evokes a sense of home that is not tied to a specific place and that extends beyond the political borders giving that place its name. For home is where one feels at home – among friends and companions.
Gašper Kunšič was born in Slovenia in 1992. He lives and works in Frankfurt am Main and studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt as well as at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. His works have been shown at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, Belvedere 21 in Vienna, the Schiller Museum in Weimar, Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Škuc Gallery in Ljubljana, UGM in Maribor, and at the Mediterranea Biennale in Nova Gorica/Gorizia.
