On the occasion of this year’s Berlin Art Week, "Shell Fig Mirror Void" presents a cross-generational and transnational exhibition project in Berlin, centered around new works by US painter Aubrey Levinthal (b. 1986). Her most recent paintings are placed in a direct visual and thematic relationship with works by Biala (Janice Biala, 1903–2000) and Tal R (b. 1967), both of whom represent vital reference points and sources of inspiration for Levinthal. The exhibition explores how these three distinct generations select their immediate surroundings as a starting point to navigate the boundaries between personal experience and universal narrative. While Aubrey Levinthal captures scenes of everyday life, interiors, and fragments of her personal environment, Tal R similarly distills the private realm—friends, family, and domestic spaces—into his own distinct visual language. Meanwhile, the painter Biala—born Schenehaia Tworkovska, who named herself after her birthplace of Biała Podlaska in Poland—spent her lifetime translating still lifes and private domestic and studio spaces into a timeless, poetic form. She bridges a unique art-historical gap: deeply rooted in the École de Paris and French Post-Impressionism, she simultaneously infused her work with the raw energy and gestural brushwork of the New York School and American Abstract Expressionism.
To date, Biala’s work has been exhibited only once in Berlin, in the 1966 group exhibition “10 Américains de Paris” at the Amerika-Haus Berlin. Although her 1962 painting “Untitled (Three Glasses)” was shown in 2022 at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam as part of the exhibition “The Shape of Freedom: International Abstraction after 1945,” this upcoming exhibition marks her return to Berlin proper after exactly 60 years.
Partner of Berlin Art Week
