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The 1981-born artist's studio is located in the attic of an old building near the former Tempelhof Airport. The furniture suggests the flea market: a simple kitchen chair, a chic seventies-era armchair with metal feet. In keeping with this ambience is Rentsch's 2011 object series, which turned old cabinets into works of art. Object No. 8 is a piece made from black and turquoise plastic of the kind often found in German bathrooms of the 1950s. First of all, Rentsch carefully cleaned the found object, a process that involves appreciation. "I have a lot of respect for things. With me, they get a shower so to speak, and in the process they are awakened from their sleep and carried into today," says the graduate of the Hochschule für Künste Bremen, where she did her MFA with Yuji Takeoka. "Removed of their function, these are no longer utilitarian objects, but are allowed to simply be things." In their materiality, Rentsch's objects develop relationships to the avant-garde movements of the late 20th century: doors turn into color fields, stripped cabinets removed of everything extraneous take on a minimalist quality. Installed in a gallery, they come across as relics of a bygone era, holders of secrets: "Because they are closed, the cabinets have something they are allowed to keep for themselves, something you can't look at or touch. An old comb might be inside, or a book. But I most like to imagine the interior as an empty space that is just the way it is."
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