Galleria Mario Iannelli is pleased to present the solo exhibition “Half my soul belongs to you” by Paula Doepfner from 6 October to 20 November 2021.

Paula Doepfner’s multimedia body of work encompasses textual works on paper, reinforced glass objects, installations in glass, ice and organic matter with sound performances. Her drawings, delineated in miniature script on fine Japanese paper, are based on sketches made while observing brain operations and autopsies at the Charité Berlin. The texts themselves are drawn from medical documents on human rights and neuroscientific research and carry traces from philosophical and lyrical sources. Doepfner’s work combines various perspectives on states of mind, incorporates the passing of time and lays bare internal organic structures. Her work proceeds from what constitutes human experience, a complex combination of science, philosophy, literature and art.

Galleria Mario Iannelli presents a new drawing and new works in glass and ice by Paula Doepfner. The ice piece titled “I got a letter this morning” will melt during the exhibition and contains texts transcribed by the artist from poems by Giuseppe Ungaretti and Sylvia Plath. Doepfner’s drawing titled “The blues came along and drove my spirit away” (2021) consists of writing in the smallest of scripts. The lines of text in the drawing are taken from UN medical reports on the investigation and documentation of torture and from Robert Musil’s novel “Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften” (Engl. “The Man Without Qualities”). In the glass work entitled “I get the blues for you baby when I look up at the sun” (2021) Doepfner has transferred sketches of areas of the brain to large pieces of glass. These pieces of glass are reinforced panels that have been removed from the facades of buildings having been smashed during anticapitalist demonstrations.

In her works - which include textual drawings, sound performances and works in glass and ice - Paula Doepfner combines opposites and integrates distant temporalities as a means of visualizing the tensions present in human experience.