Review of vanessa german’s “GUMBALL”
Installation view of vanessa german: GUMBALL—there is absolutely no space between body and soul, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Kasmin, New York.
Kasmin’s current exhibition of vanessa german’s works, GUMBALL—there is absolutely no space between body and soul, is an incredible second solo show at the gallery. It is an exploration of spirituality, identity, and power rooted in a formidable artistic practice.
A secluded, deep blue room just before the main hall of the exhibition gives an entrypoint to what german’s works are really about, presenting one of the sculptures (the midnight alligator’s daughter, or, where we are and what we’ve been, will be no situation upon where we go and what we shall become., 2025) apart from the rest and placing it at the center of the audience’s imaginative landscape. A dark face shines and glimmers, a blue alligator descends down over the nose. Glaring star-shaped eyes look outward into the void of its environment, hands reach up over the neck towards the face. A lamp blooms at the top of the head, flowering upwards into a bright light, and eyes scatter themselves across the visible surface. Every individual person might be able to approach german’s sculptures differently through their exploration of the diversely rich topographies—described as “cosmic maps” in the press release.
Spirituality thematically binds the sculptures, which are founded upon the material, visual, and conceptual direction of the exhibition. Each sculpture is like an omnipresent and omniscient idol, discrete from any other head in the space. The sculptures are not a singular soul, rather, each head comprises a multitude: composed as constellations of a vast set of motifs, distorting and mutating across the series as if they were the representation of an entire lifetime in an instant, at every instant, and yet simultaneously momentary.
Installation view of vanessa german: GUMBALL—there is absolutelyno space between body and soul, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Kasmin, New York.
Each sculpture is a world in itself, producing a familiarity with its own body by expressing its core across the surface. From arrows and hands on some, to horns and bottles on another, each invites a different gaze, and promotes a different identity. The press release mentions the artist’s consideration of “love as an infinite human technology.” The question is, how vulnerable must the audience be to engage with the presented vulnerability of the sculptures? Each person must recognize their own subjective approach to being before understanding what is presented. In some ways, this becomes a question of agency for the audience to recognize each head for what they embody and represent.
The most significant tool towards an understanding of the sculptures would be to have the checklist in hand, navigating the assemblage of heads with german’s voice abstractly putting together all the weight each of them carry. One of her works lover, lover, lover boi (2025) starts with “arm trans women, existence cannot be non-existence, get over it, love, love, love,” and then jumps into “wood, plaster, plaster gauze, bottle cap chain,” before reverting to “forgiveness.” This jumping back and forth is extremely powerful at times, promoting somewhat consciously what a train of thought might look like when engaging with an artwork.
vanessa german, GUMBALL, or, Gloriously Underestimated Magical Bounty As Living Love. Or, An Invitation to Contemplation at the pace of One’s own Divine Soul., 2025. gemstones and minerals: tigers eye, onyx, obsidian, rose quartz, morganite, lapis, aragonite, citrine, agate, dyed jade, titanium heated geode, spirit quartz. Cut glass crystal, fish key chains, a love song to the Soul of it all, a house in which to grow wise in a manner with allows no violation to the being, wood, hand blown glass gumball, ceramic figurine, pink prayer beads, prayers of grace and the intimacy of loneliness giving into the knowing of deep and true wholeness, light, astroturf, joyous angelic presence, the levity of the Buddha—HA HA. Love, memories of my grandmother, plaster, plaster guaze, cardboard, obsidian lucky foot, 3-4 bags of my/the artist’s recycling, a laying on of hands and a release into the grace of being held outside of one’s own mind, joy, ceramic butterflies, the way that black girls—in my youth—could speak their own language by chewing and popping gum, beaded flowers, hope, newness, porcelain tile, slow down, it’s going to be ok., 87 x 47 1/2 x 43 1/2 inches. © vanessa german. Courtesy of the artist and Kasmin, New York.
The artworks find their greatest freedom in their descriptions. Physical materials are listed in each piece’s medium, but are joined by the concepts and emotions that bind them together, such as “being seen against the unseeing,” “kissing and fucking for the peace and joy of it all,” “the blood of your womb and no child to show for it,” and “the end of the idea that having the most money will keep death from your doorstep.” These quasi-poetic mediums are like an expiation of all that is inside: true to the title of the show, they bind the body to the soul.
As autonomous as each sculpture may be in its visual grandeur, they are not independent from their own poetic footing. The artist’s use of the descriptions as a creative tool to communicate her ideas is as foundational as the colors or the crystals. To look at the works is also to engage with the poetry, the essential substance of the sculptures’ beings—and in doing this, the audience can involve themselves with the realm where the physical body and the ethereal soul are merged together by german’s use of rich, and often emotionally triggering texts to define somewhat the trajectories of each sculpture.
Crystals, charms, animals, love, eyes, and much more burst out of german’s practice: there can be no such thing as a quick look at her show. To go again for a second viewing might be the most successful way to experience GUMBALL: the first time, to recognize the gods; the second, a pilgrimage.
Installation view of vanessa german: GUMBALL—there is absolutelyno space between body and soul, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Kasmin, New York.
vanessa german: GUMBALL—there is absolutely no space between body and soul is on view at Kasmin from April 3 through May 10.