Klára Hosnedlová’s monumental installation for the CHANEL Commission in the historic hall of the Hamburger Bahnhof explores themes of home, utopia, and everyday life within different political systems. This is Hosnedlová’s most ambitious and expansive sculptural work to date, featuring tapestries up to nine meters high, site-specific objects, organic reliefs, and large-scale embroideries. The embroidery motifs are drawn from film and video recordings of performative interventions staged by the artist in Berlin. The content reflects architecture, films, and novels that define the cultural memory of the border regions of what is now the Czech Republic over the past centuries.
“embrace” at Hamburger Bahnhof marks Klára Hosnedlová’s largest institutional solo exhibition to date. Within the industrial architecture of the museum's historic hall, the artist constructs a utopian landscape using flax fibres, embroidery, cast glass, sandstone, clay, iron, and concrete slabs. The work focuses on rural areas of today’s Czech Republic, shaped by artisanal and industrial production processes as well as the shifting of national borders. Concrete slabs and iron walls recall the architecture of the communist era, grounding the utopian vision in a complex historical context. With Hosnedlová (born 1990), Hamburger Bahnhof once again presents a site-specific work by a young artist pushing the boundaries of contemporary sculpture in the museum's iconic main hall.
The CHANEL Commission at Hamburger Bahnhof is an annual commission that marks a new chapter in the museum’s legacy, empowering artists to realize ambitious, large-scale projects. Setting a new bench-mark for commissions in public institutions due to its unparalleled scope and vision, the collaboration boldly reimagines the museum's iconic 2,500-square-meter historic hall, transforming it into an i mersive, thought-provoking arena.
The exhibition is curated by Sam Bardaouil, Director of Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart and Anna-Catharina Gebbers, Curator of Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart.