Kate Newby, anything anything, 2024, brick installation made of « Lumière » clay with inclusions of various materials, 50 meters long, Klosterruine, Berlin/DE.

Composed of more than 900 bricks, anything anything by Kate Newby spreads out in two curved lines of 50 meters long each, integrated in the ground of the Berlin monastery. The two trails evoke a now-gone liturgical path inside the disused Klosterruine, this gothic architecture from the 13^th century: a structure made out of local bricks including parts of an even older building. This composition considers this location as the subject of unavoidable evolutions. A phenomenological work focusing on changing perceptions, the understanding of this architecture, permitted by a piece that oscillates between appearance and disappearance.

Here, the New Zealand artist reiterates the collaboration with the French workshop Rairies Montrieux. A cooperation which can be explained by the artisanal legacy claimed by Kate Newby in her practice. They produced Lumière bricks, a milky blend of four different clays processed with a wood-fired kiln. This pyramidal model is usually used to design facades. A mass-produced and standardized shape confronted by the artist: she carves, sculpts, reshapes, making each brick unique. Some motifs in the material and other colored inclusions are inspired by her observation of the urban environment and its alterations, specifically the bricks’ decay. Her meticulous sculptural work reveals itself in the details, according to a particular approach that reminds us of the post-minimalist perspectives.

With anything anything, Klosterruine is regarded as a meeting point at the crossroads of history and contemporary production. A project which illustrates a sedimentation, a fusion of materiality and temporalities at once. The installation is similar to miniature topographies, interacting with the environment, activated by nature: the rain infiltrating the material, leaves caught in the grooves, some dust building up… Kate Newby considers the space as an ecosystem, setting a social and cultural framework. She highlights the idea of sharing with the production of limited edition postcard distributed freely to the spectators participating in the revival of those ruins.