- A solo exhibition or solo show refers to an exhibition with only one artist
take shelter | nachtspeicher 23, Hamburg/GER
”take shelter”, solo show at ”nachtspeicher 23”, Hamburg/GER
The solo show Take Shelter revolves around the tension between the human need for protection and the experience of vulnerability—between withdrawal and confrontation with a world in crisis. The title refers both to the associative field in which the exhibited works operate and to a fundamental human condition: the fragility of existence and the simultaneous yearning for safety, belonging, and structure.
Against the backdrop of global political and economic instability, the notion of shelter takes on renewed urgency. States on the brink of financial collapse seek refuge beneath the protective umbrella of more powerful nations. Elsewhere, exclusion zones are created to contain environmental disasters or radioactive contamination—temporary safety zones that often reveal more about collective anxiety than actual protection. Even the family, often idealized as a private haven, proves to be a fragile construct whose supposed stability is far from guaranteed.
Take Shelter thus reflects both the longing for and the failure of protective spaces—whether physical, social, or psychological. The works on display address this ambivalent movement between retreat and exposure. They explore the idea of shelter not as a given place, but as an act—an ongoing response to threat, a performative gesture of withdrawal or of boundary-drawing. Shelter is understood here not as a fixed location, but as a process—often fleeting, fragile, and impermanent.
In this sense, Take Shelter becomes an expression of a permanent reflex in a world marked by uncertainty. The exhibition reveals how artistic practice responds to both collective and individual needs for protection—and simultaneously asks whether art itself can function as a space of retreat, reflection, or resilience.
