Rike Droescher. Participation Trophy
MUR BRUT 20
21.8. – 14.11.2021

For MUR BRUT 20, Rike Droescher has created a mural for a wall in the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf parking garage.

The circulation of objects and the process of transformation of materials are points of departure for Rike Droescher’s artworks. In her mural Participation Trophy, which she created for the parking garage, she deals with the significance of bronze as a material. While monuments in the form of bronze sculptures are displayed in public places in commemoration of military victories or in support of political ideologies, the historical significance of the material stems from its repurposing. In times of crisis, monuments were melted down in order to be used as cannonballs, for example. The material itself reflects upheavals and changing societies as well as processes of transformation.

For MUR BRUT, Rike Droescher will affix a baseboard partly made of bronze to the ledge on the wall. The bronze, which has the words “Participation Trophy” engraved in it, is embedded with additional baseboards made of plaster. Above this are tiles whose blue stripe reflects the aesthetics of the parking garage.

With her work Participation Trophy, Rike Droescher addresses the politics of memorials and monuments that are erected in public spaces as symbols of collective remembrance or recognition, and inevitably ties in with questions that are relevant to our time: What should we preserve? What or who should we commemorate? How should we do this? And what role do monuments play for us today?

Rike Droescher completed a degree in fashion design before studying fine arts at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich. She completed her studies in 2020 as a master class student of Peter Piller at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.