SONJA YAKOVLEVA

SONJA YAKOVLEVA
Reizklima
Robert Grunenberg
02.05.2025 – 14.06.2025

With Reizklima, Robert Grunenberg presents a new solo exhibition by Sonja Yakovleva. Born in 1989, the artist is renowned for her large-scale, intricately detailed paper cuttings, through which she explores corporeality, sexuality, social power dynamics, and the media-staged performance of femininity. Her works fluctuate between delicate craftsmanship and radical thematic intensity. Following Tanga Tanga (2023, Robert Grunenberg) and Wer hat Macht? Körper im Streik (2024, Frankfurter Kunstverein), Yakovleva continues her investigation into the tension between bodies, public space, and societal control.

Beaches are spaces of promise – of freedom, equality, hedonistic escape. Here, the naked body can become a symbol of self-determination, desire, or social capital. While in the 1970s nudist culture, undressing was seen as a form of liberation, nudity remains a minefield today: Who reveals themselves? Who is allowed to? And who gets to look – and how? Yakovleva is intrigued by these dynamics and examines them on the beaches of Sylt – sites of desire, projection, power, but also social stratification. Because by the time the first punk invasions of the 1980s, inflatable pools, 9-euro train tickets and lukewarm canned beer arrived, the postcard-perfect fantasy had already begun to fray. Where today wicker beach chairs are defended against crowds of partygoers, it becomes clear that the question of who owns public space has never truly been resolved.

In her research at the Sylt municipal archive, Yakovleva unearthed headlines from decades past: “Naked as Sylt made her”, “On Sylt, virile men sell like hotcakes” – journalistic sexcapades that unfailingly reproduce a male gaze on sex and control. But Yakovleva also exposes the flip side of these images: sexism, the economic exploitation of female bodies, a deeply exclusionary societal structure that persists to this day. The so-called Pony Club becomes a cipher for this contradiction – once a dance club of liberation, later a symbol of racist violence. How does a culture of hedonism relate to the exclusions it simultaneously produces? A thematic anchor of the exhibition is Valeska Gert (1892–1978), one of the most radical performers of the 20th century. Gert – dancer, actress, entrepreneur – ran her legendary nightclub Ziegenstall in Kampen and embodied both bodily ecstasy and social resistance. From the 1920s on, Sylt became Gert’s refuge from the wildness of Berlin. In a large-scale work, Yakovleva references Gert’s legacy: Valeska Gert Ziegenstall depicts her as a dancer in underwear – her silhouette morphs into the shape of the island itself, a symbol for the mysterious punk summer nights of the 1950s. In the background: collage-like translations of original black-and-white photographs from Gert’s life – the facade of the Ziegenstall, scenes from her Dance Frenzy locale, the idyllic landscape, the contrasting Berlin. Works like Legendäre Wiedereröffnungsparty im Pony Club nach Übernahme durch ein Szene-Gastronominnen Trio and Grüße von der Insel Sylt riff on the nostalgic sex-and-sand aesthetic of the 1970s, dismantling it into voyeuristic, economically extractable fragments.
Other pieces, like Ocean of Fantasies, weave these shards together with maritime mythologies: mermaids, sirens, ancient narratives that continue to shape our collective image of the beach.

From this research emerges another, subtler question, which Yakovleva threads into her cut-paper works: What happens to a place when its old narratives are artificially kept alive? How long can the idea of freedom and excess be maintained – how long can an image be resuscitated before it becomes pure pose? The much-invoked wildness of the ’70s, the subcultures of the ’80s – on Sylt, they seem less lived than curated. The resurrection of a myth becomes a ritual; the island’s fantasy image, an endless backdrop. And eventually, the question arises: When is it time to let go of an image, without burdening it with too much meaning? Yakovleva’s works approach this moment with skepticism – not as loss, but as the insight that nostalgia is no eternal glue.

Yakovleva’s paper-cutting technique, often associated with folkloric sentimentality, undergoes a radical shift in her practice. With meticulous precision, she slices her motifs from black or white paper, deconstructing familiar narratives and constructing surreal visual worlds that oscillate between ironic amplification and analytical clarity. The graphic contrasts emphasize a play of revelation and concealment, visibility and invisibility. In works like A Pregnant Lobster Lady or the triptych Bro Bad, luxury clashes with nonchalance, erotic liberation with social constraint.
With Reizklima, Yakovleva invites us to view the beach resorts of Sylt not merely as spaces of leisure, but as mirrors of societal conditions. Who is being exhibited here, and who is doing the looking? What does nudity mean in a society teetering between prudishness and exhibitionism? And how deeply are we attached to images that no longer tell the truth? The exhibition is a sharp-edged game with clichés, mythologies, and visibilities – a place where desire and discomfort meet in the dunes.

Sonja Yakovleva was born in Potsdam, (DE), in 1989. She lives and works in Frankfurt a.M. (DE). She studied at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (University of Fine Arts) in Offenbach.

Opening
01 May 2025
6 – 9 PM

Exhibition on view
02.05.2025 – 14.06.2025

For more information, please contact the gallery: mail@robertgrunenberg.com

Now on view

REIZKLIMA

2 MAY – 14 JUNE 2025

Robert Grunenberg is delighted to present the exhibition “Reizklima” by Sonja Yakovleva