The German artist Wiebke Siem (*1954) causes our homely everyday life to be ‘invaded’ by fantastic and grotesque elements. Be that in the form of costumes which invite us to slip on another gender, or items of furniture that dangle their arms — Wiebke Siem creates a cosmos that is as funny as it is unfathomable, that renders the contradictions and inadequacies of our lifeworld visible with irony and wit. The artist’s works combine a feminist gaze with a critique of modernism’s problematic appropriation of non-European art. The sculptures conjure up numerous associations with art history, be it with the figures of Sophie Taeuber-Arp, the Bauhaus stage, caricatures or surrealistic collages.

Siem’s Der Traum der Dinge (The dream of things) is an interactive installation that invites viewers to themselves become active: bowls, washing pegs, wooden spoons, rolling pins, clothes hangers, wig heads and other wooden objects can be combined to make up life-size figures. Irrespective of whether the body of such figures is made out of a scrubbing board, a dough trough or a large plywood can, what emerge are beings with very different characters.