From Deep Sea Odyssey to Space Between Two People Having Sex marks Asta Gröting’s inaugural solo exhibition with carlier | gebauer in Madrid, showcasing a compelling selection of both iconic and recent sculptural works.
Spanning the breadth of the artist’s career, from the 1980s to the present, the exhibition highlights an ongoing, nuanced investigation into corporeality, its presence or absence. Gröting’s work delves into the unseen, the unsaid, and the invisible forces that bind us, both physically and metaphysically. It is an exploration of the ways in which bodies, whether tangible or abstract, are interconnected, revealing profound truths about our existence, intimacy, and relationships.
One of the iconic pieces of the show is Deep Sea Odyssey (1982/2025), a reworking of Gröting’s earliest known sculpture, first created during her studies at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. The piece, shaped like a shell and sized to the artist’s own height, symbolically references femininity while also highlighting her position as one of the few female sculptors at the academy during that period. In the 2025 iteration, the shell has been transformed into an organic, with moss encrusting its surface as if it has been submerged in deep sea waters. The thick layer of moss invokes not just the passage of time but the artist’s own evolution and search for identity within the realm of sculpture.
The Space Between Two People Having Sex and Space Between Two Women Having Sex further explore the physicality of human connection by capturing the impressions of two bodies in intimacy, reflecting the tension between the visible and invisible. The void between bodies, the space that separates, become the subject of the work and as the viewer stands before these empty spaces they are confronted with the presence of something much more significant: the imprint of human connection. Gröting makes visible what is typically unseen, what is both unsaid and concealed in human interaction. The very absence of words, the silence between lovers, is central to this narrative. The sculptural space between bodies mimics the silent void that pervades much of human interaction. As the artist poignantly reminds us, “we can’t see air, but if we could, it would be what’s between us.”
In Soil (2012), a sculpture made of epoxy resin and 24K gold leaf, Gröting moulds a freshly ploughed field. The piece connects us to the earth beneath our feet, reminding us of our interconnectedness with nature, food production, and labour. Soil, in its most basic form, is the origin of sustenance, feeding generations of people who live off its fertility. By gilding the soil in gold, Gröting elevates it to a symbol of preciousness, a subtle commentary on the value of the labour and life cycles intertwined in our sustenance. It is a reminder that we are all part of a larger system (farmers, workers, immigrants, and the land itself) and that our lives are dependent on these forces.
The connection between the internal and external is further explored in the video Mirando por la Ventana (2025) which features the artist, Ming Wong. Looking out through the window of the gallery, his gaze appears fixed on something beyond, as if searching within himself– capturing the act of looking outward while contemplating the inner world. The act of looking out of a window, something quotidian, becomes a metaphor for introspection. This video, like the sculptures, engages with the unseen: the mental and emotional states that often escape visual representation.
In the end, this exhibition creates a holistic dialogue, linking the artworks through their exploration of the physical body and the forces that shape our existence. Gröting’s oeuvre challenges us to reconsider the spaces between things, the spaces we occupy, the air we breathe, and the relationships that shape us. Her sculptures are metaphors for the invisible forces that permeate our lives, the things we cannot see but can feel. They remind us that the body, in all its forms, is not only the site of our existence but also a conduit for connection, an enduring testament to the ties that connect us, even in silence.
