4.-22.dec 2025
the chapel
pilgrimage of provocation
exhibition
The chapel, Anja Nolte, Soloshow
date
6. – 14.Dec 2025
location
Gallery erstererster, Berlin
exhibition sheet
download PDF (soon!)
Nolte’s exhibition THE CHAPEL arises from observing a moral decline: lies, abuse of power, exclusion, and corruption define our society, while the perpetrators are celebrated. The exhibition responds critically, revealing the “idols of our time” — likes, social media, consumption, self-optimization, and fame — and their effects on empathy, awareness, and dialogue.
The form of a pilgrimage site symbolizes hope, reflection, and orientation. Irony and satire provide access to complex issues, provoking thought and engagement without overwhelming. Alongside the darkness, signs of hope emerge — empathy, respect, and diversity.
Personal observations — political developments, the digital omnipresence of crises, experiences in psychiatry, and familial as well as historical narratives — flow into the work. The Chapel invites visitors to recognize the sacred within the profane, the human within loss, to reflect on themselves, and to question the world critically.
The exhibition is accompanied by a diverse program of music, readings, talks, and guided tours.
the tryptichon
The others, 2025, TRYP excerpt, Video FHD
The multimedia installation Tryptichon transposes the ecclesiastical visual form of a triptych into the present day. Somewhere between an escapist idyll, a narcissistic pose, and relentless self-optimization — the work questions a society that exhausts itself in self-absorption, while exclusion, pressure, and conflict are both suppressed and intensified.
In the middle: Mother, an allusion to “Mother of God,” depicts a perverted version of the Virgin Mary in contrast to her nurturing archetype. A super-mother — a “tradwife”? — with no fewer than four teat-like connectors for nursing her brood, as well as an oven-like birth canal from which crispy turkeys could plop out one after another. Furthermore, a mask that obscures the view and “stuffs the mouth” ensures calm and sedation.
The Others – tryptichons right wing – depicts characters who are running on an endless treadmill, trapped in a cycle of self-optimization and social media performance. The pent-up pressure finds an outlet in the protagonists’ loud screams.
