“Cold Hope” the new solo show by Anne Imhof opened last week at Galerie Buchholz, Berlin

Anne Imhof’s latest exhibition at Galerie Buchholz, Cold Hope, features an extended chapter of Anne’s work with a new series of large-scale paintings, drawings, and a sculptural sound installation. Her large-scale paintings are embedded with a latent political message beneath a surface of distorted screen imagery. Figures within the works adopt symbolic roles—heroes, saints—hinting at religious iconography amid the reality of surveillance in the modern panopticon. Imhof maps emotional interiority as the last refuge of agency within the spectacle of control. 

A separate series of smaller drawings revisits Doom: House of Hope, her performance at the Park Avenue Armory earlier this year. These sketches, rendered over the blueprints of the venue, recall ecclesiastical architecture and offer insight into her choreographic and conceptual process, framing her performances as contemporary rituals. Other drawings bring together Anne’s influences and a pantheon of her references. In an adjoining room, a sculptural installation in the form of a black snake, composed of D&B Audio speakers, plays fragments from the score of Doom: House of Hope. 

On view until June 21st, 2025

Text and photography by Aleph Molinari