Ferdinand Dölberg and Ceyda Karatas

Desire is nourished by what doesn‘t yet exist
—Han, Byung-Chul

The Artist Room is delighted to present Inferno of the Same, a two-person exhibition including new and recent works by Ferdinand Dölberg (b.1998, Berlin) and Ceyda Karatas (b.1989, Istanbul).  

The exhibition takes its name from philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s publication The Agony of Eros (2017). Considering the nuances of human interaction in what he names burnout society, the book asks why technologically mediated social interaction has led to a contemporary condition characterised by ‘fetishised individualism’. In harried contemporary life, the author argues, our satisfaction is largely drawn from efficiency, small pleasures, and instant gratification; often catalyzed by the immediacy of digital technology. Han suggests that the pace of life – and our lack of patience, focus and concentration – lead to satisfaction for the ‘comfortable, safe, and familiar’. In other words, contentment with endlessly repeating forms of experiences and entertainment that minorly vary: the Inferno of the Same. As such, this exhibition observes how Dölberg and Karatas utilise and expand on this notion of repetition to consider alternative ways of being. 

Evocative of biomorphic, abstract, and organic shapes Karatas’s works present hybrid forms that seek to ‘break the coded classifications of living things’. Intricately produced on paper, utilising materials such as pencil, ink and gouache, her works are also characterised by their pink, flesh-like colours. These bodily shapes could be associated with the concept of eros – love, intimacy and desire – in that they hold an essential ‘life energy’. Interested in the complexity and nuances of eros Karatas observes how, in works such as Becoming No.2 (2016), she seeks to ‘confuse our notions of difference rather than determining them… [creating] a sense of metamorphosis, not a static condition, but a state of becoming.’ 

Many of her works, such as Reaching through transforming no.1 (2017–20) incorporate minute hairs, a key motif in her practice, which can significantly be associated with a surrealist tendency. As academic Sébastien Galland writes, hair ‘causes goosebumps and fascination: it is a part of the shapelessness that signals a rejection of rationality and philosophy, of metaphorisation and aesthetics,’ an ‘unheimlich (uncanny) zone… irreducible, erotic and sacred’. For Karatas, repeating forms across individual works and through broader series is a way of indicating that there is continuity in the world. Kiss of Endless Forms (2020), for instance, makes references to Brancusi’s Endless Column (1938) and Isamu Noguchi’s Endless Coupling, Mitosis (1957). The symbolic use of repetition is also present in Earth Seed (2020) which uses the circle form – a shape with no edges – to refer to cyclic time (time marked by repetition in the natural world) and metamorphosis. 

Ferdinand Dölberg utilises a variety of mediums on canvas: Monotype printing, acrylic, coal, and chalk, among them. In all of his works, non-binary figures are placed in unplaceable, enigmatic settings – sometimes in groups, other times alone. Dölberg is interested in how moments of political and social change influence aesthetic movements as well as systems of power: whether academic, bureaucratic, or authoritative. The Dada movement is a key influence for Dölberg, as well as later related canonical styles such as Punk and New Wave. A response to conflict, the Dada movement rejected modern society’s mathematical logic and aesthetics, instead encouraging experimentation, irrational thinking, modes of flux and creative expression. ‘Art is not an end in itself,’ as Hugo Ball famously described. ‘But it is an opportunity for the true perception and criticism of the times we live in.’ 

Indeed, the settings that Dölberg places figures, like bright beak pigeon (2023) are surreal and dream-like, suggesting an unclear future. ‘The paintings refer to a sense of search and stand as placeholders for a system.’ Ferdinand has explained. ‘A system that cannot or should not be defined.’ Rigid modern architectures are abandoned in works such as tried, failed and tried again. nuisance (2023) repeating patterns appear inversed in related works. Gender-ambiguous figures repeat throughout his works, which make nods to the precarious state of individuality in modern mass society. Olga Hohmann has previously likened the figures to mourners. She said, ‘As mourners, they find themselves in an interstice between one world and the other; with their memories, they establish the presence of the ones who are absent, who also remain present in the objects left behind.’

Ferdinand Dölberg (b.1998, Berlin) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Since 2017, Dölberg has been studying in the class of Thomas Zipp at the Fine Art University of the Arts, Berlin, including a year of exchange at Central Saint Martins, London (2022). Recent solo exhibitions include Am Ende die Leerstelle, Galerie Anton Janizewski, Berlin (2023) and Bitte Widersetzen!, Galerie Anton Janizewski, Berlin (2022). Recent group exhibitions include Tomorrow is Tomorrow is Tomorrow, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London; Telbat, Ferdinand Dölberg and Yannick Riemer, Orbit, Hamburg; A slice of landscape, Galerie Anton Janizewski, Berlin (all 2023). 

Ceyda Karatas (b. 1989, Istanbul, Turkey) lives and works in London, UK. In 2019, Karatas graduated with an MA in painting from Slade School of Fine Art. Prior to that, Karatas completed a BA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts, London (2017).