Lena Henke

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Artist statement

In my work, I test the conditions and possibilities of sculpture using technically innovative methods of production. Throughout my practice, I produce sculptures and installations that intimately recast histories of modernism, design, and urban planning, in response to their specific social and architectural contexts. I expand the range of meaning of traditional sculpture by incorporating questions of femaleness and the production of power relations in urban space. The possibilities of plastic art and sculpture serve as a basis for understanding the molding (and casting) of bodies as a changeable process of design. My process begins with research into the physical spaces in which I live, work, and exhibit––with a resulting site-specificity and a sculptural language whose often appropriated forms are at once rigorous and flirtatious. My method works to challenge the patriarchal legacies of modern culture while bringing the lived experiences of gender to the surface. Thus, in groups of works like Hooves, Boobs, and Sand Bodies, the process by which the work becomes a work finds representation not in ideal conceptions. Rather, these works are designed to propose alternative narratives anchored in the importance of haptic and emotional experience. For the past decade, I have produced a body of work that explores relations to the architecture and urban design of New York City, where I’ve continuously lived and worked. As a German-born female artist, I have dedicated my work to...

Artwork