Jonas Hödicke and Kiki Karnstein: Escape Velocity

Gravity, motion, and transformation are at the heart of the exhibition "Escape Velocity".

– Kiki Karnstein: Ekijin Okuri (The Plague Bearers) 2026

Real bodies and imagined pictorial spaces converge, opening up different perspectives on the moment when orders lose their binding power. vₑ = √(2GM/r): This formula calculates the escape velocity—the minimum speed a body must reach to permanently leave a gravitational field. In the exhibition, this physical threshold becomes a visual metaphor. The artists explore the question of what keeps bodies, images, and memories on their familiar paths. What happens at the threshold where the gravitational pull continues to act, yet further movement no longer leads back? Jonas Hödicke studied sculpture at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under Markus Lüpertz and Siegfried Anzinger.

In Hödicke’s sculptures, lines condense into forms; interstices and shadows define their shape.His paintings and drawings continue this interplay of tension, resistance, and movement on the surface.

Kiki Karnstein is the stage name of art historian, curator, and author Kirstin Buchinger, founder of the YVA Archive Berlin. The roots of her artistic practice lie in classical darkroom work. Today, she combines her photographs with post-photographic techniques, art-historical references, and painterly interventions. In her works, she transforms visual icons and myths; familiar laws of physics seem to be suspended in the process. In the exhibition space, the relationship between lightness and heaviness can be physically experienced in both installations: Hödicke’s figures are made of wire and steel, yet their open structure renders their weight permeable. Karnstein’s pictorial spaces appear to float, yet are simultaneously permeated by the motif of finitude. The forms are still bound; their future movement remains open.

Runtime: Tue, 01/09/2026 to Sat, 03/10/2026

Takes place here:

• Galerie Mond