Renate Bühn very often puts many months or even, years of thought and research into her installations and objects, which undergo a contextual shift and gain renewed complexity in each and every place they are shown. Looking closely at hidden realities is a fundamental aspect both of her social work and her artistic practice as well as the driving force behind them.
In her work – the Lavabo and pin series – Bühn addresses cases of sexual abuse perpetrated in the Catholic Church and its institutions. Since 2012, she has engaged in researched in order to find the appropriate artistic means to apprehend not only the dimensions and multifaceted nature of this crime but also the efforts made by the Church, not least by the Vatican, to protect those who perpetrate it.
Dr. Katharina Koch
is the title of the first solo catalogue of Renate Bühn, an artist who has made everyday sexualised violence against girls and boys – and society’s marginalisation of the issue – the focus of her work. The title highlights the persistance of sexualised violence, society’s failure to face up to it, and its continuing relevance today; and also the fact that the artist has shown unfailing commitment to raising awareness of the issue, by keeping it in the public eye for almost twenty years.
The family, the church and wartime are only some of the main contexts in which sexualised violence can be perpetrated over many years, often in secret and unpunished. The men and women who perpetrate this crime are mostly protected – specifically, by their own families or, more generally, by society’s tendency to turn a blind eye to the crime and accept sexist court verdicts that downplay its severity.
Prof. Dr. Sabine Andresen
»How many pearls it takes to be happy…« and how fragile happiness is, when children are exposed to sexualised violence. In muted shades, the artist Renate Bühn paints in oils a girl lost in her own world. She is threading pearls. At the edge of the frame is an ashtray. The colours and composition, the child’s posture and the expression on her face signalise an exceptional state under seemingly normal circumstances.
How difficult it is – even later, in adult life – to put into words a child’s experience of sexualised violence: so many attempts fail, because no one listens to or believes the child, or because family life continues as normal, punching holes in a youngster’s body and soul.
Stadtrat Michael Frost, Dezernent für Schule und Kultur
Grußwort zur Eröffnung der Ausstellung am 19.08.18 in der Kulturkirche Bremerhaven
Eigentlich, so denkt man, kennt unsere aufgeklärte westliche Zivilisation keine Tabus mehr. Nichts, worüber nicht öffentlich, permanent, bis in die letzten Details informiert oder diskutiert wird. Der Auftrag öffentlich-rechtlicher Medien einerseits, andererseits die Möglichkeit für jede und jeden Einzelnen, mittels der digitalen Medien eigene Verbreitungskanäle für welches Thema auch immer zu realisieren, schaffen beste Voraussetzungen, gesellschaftliche Missstände aufzudecken und entsprechende Debatten auszulösen – eigentlich.