Vera Lossau pulls off an unusual balancing act with her sculptures. They are self-consciously Conceptual but nevertheless display traces of the artist’s hand, and like works in the tradition of Minimalism, they often point to their own spatial contexts, though they also take on a metaphorical dimension – a few are even narrative. Can these things go together? Haven´t Conceptual and Minimalist approaches to art always stood in vehement opposition to expressive and metaphorical, let alone narrative, entanglements? (…) the combination can work if the contrasts produce an engaging tension. 

And this is just what Lossau is after: this tension between Conceptual and Minimalist approaches to sculpture and the metaphorical reach that has been a major part of what sculpture is about. Lossau’s references to medieval Madonnas and her fascination with the art of the early Renaissance, on the one hand, and with Marcel Duchamp on the other, are therefore not merely irreconcilable whims but help define her conceptually grounded modus operandi. But at the same time, she knows that this tension between modernist reductiveness and metaphorical complexities can never be fully resolved. Lossau’s sculptures can come off as absurd – and this is what she wants: “This absurdity gives a tiny sense of freedom, since it exists behind the known structures of perception,” as she explained in an interview. “And precisely this is the motivation for and part of my quest.”

Noemi Smolik, Vera Lossau
Excerpt from a text from: ARTFORUM INTERNATIONAL, SUMMER 2017
Translated from German by Oliver E. Dryfuss.

Vera Lossau (*1976 in Haan) is an international working visual artist from Düsseldorf, Germany, where she lives and works. After studying at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (with Prof. Magdalena Jetelová [Meisterschülerbrief] and Prof. Rita McBride) she completed her master studies in the Chelsea College of Art & Design, London. Vera Lossau is represented in various private and public collections. Her work has been exhibited in art institutions and museums, including the Museum Schloss Moyland (Germany), Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen (Germany), Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf (Germany), the Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen (Germany), Alfred Institute Tel Aviv (Israel), the Janco Dada Museum, Ein Hod (Israel), the IMMA Irish Museum of Modern Art Dublin (Ireland), the Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul (Korea), the MAKK Museum of Applied Arts Cologne (Germany), the Kunstverein Mönchengladbach (Germany), the Haus der Kunst, Munich (Germany), the ME collectors room Olbricht Collection, Berlin (Germany), Sa Sa Art Projects, Pnom Penh (Cambodia) and many others.

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