Kleindienst (Spinnerei)

On now

• Tilo Baumgärtel | Just a Windowshopper

  Until 24 Oct 2026

  
  More info
• The exhibition Smells Like Teen Spirit documents Mike Okay’s artistic engagement with watercolor painting—and a personal move toward more concrete forms of expression. It is complemented by scent compositions by the artist Veronika Raupach. Clad in helmets and uniforms, a pair of figures runs, rolls, and wrestles through Mike Okay’s new pictorial worlds. They put on plush-toy masks, play “Giddy-up, horsey” and “Rock, paper, scissors,” ride inline skates, or compete in ping-pong, arm wrestling, and boxing. A combative gesture and static posture contrast with dynamic activity and childlike lightness—and dissolve into a fluid, airy play of color. These are the artist’s first works ever to show human figures. Previously, urban structures, toys, comic heroes, and cultural codes from his childhood and youth dominated his mostly large-format canvases. In the Toy Stories (2020) series, rough airbrush lines outlined small visual narratives of dolls, cuddly bunnies, and crashed Matchbox cars on homogeneous canvases. With Alle Pudel fliegen hoch (2023), Mike Okay turned painting into a child’s game by cutting up his finished motifs, reassembling them like a sliding puzzle, and painting over them again. Small details from these earlier works also enrich the scenes in the new large formats: chains, mask-glasses, martini glasses, and above all, droplets. In Rock, Paper, Scissors, they were collaged from canvas fragments. Following their own grid, they almost “dance” across the picture. As silvery shimmering aluminum objects, fifteen of them hang from the ceiling and walls throughout the exhibition, creating a spatial connection between the works on view. Their emphasis is unmistakable. But are these raindrops? Martini splashes? Or tears? The works themselves provide the answers. In The Duel, the protagonists play arm wrestling on the hood of a “Mercedis,” each casually resting the other arm behind their head. “Too much Emotion?” one figure asks the other, who replies: “Full Speed Devotion!” The call is to surrender to one’s own feelings with full passion; to take joy, sorrow, pain, or overwhelm seriously as sources of true authenticity and to give them space. Is this the guiding idea of this new series: finding closeness to oneself? Does the weightlifter in Summer Body Loading examine his mental strengths and weaknesses in the mirror rather than his muscular power? Do the figures wear their helmets to protect against inner pain rather than external injury? And is the martini glass in Cheers for Fears therefore not meant to numb one’s own fears, but to open them up to the outside world? In this sense, Mike Okay’s works also function as a response to Nirvana’s anthem for a youth marked by inner turmoil and a sense of not being taken seriously. Yet it is precisely in the early years of life that there is a curiosity, a spirit of departure, and a thirst for adventure that deserve to be heard. It is this very force—this teen spirit—that inspired artist Veronika Raupach to create three scent compositions, presented alongside Mike Okay’s works in the exhibition. They are provided as scent samples on test strips and accompany the walk through the exhibition. Odors are directly linked in the brain to the limbic system, which is why they can trigger strong emotions and memories. These individual associations enter into correspondence with the visual perception of the paintings. The olfactory art extends the intended inward gaze by enriching the sensory experience of looking at images with another—deeply
  Description

  Mike OKAY | Smells Like Teen Spirit

  Until 24 Oct 2026

  
  More info