vanessa german
vanessa german
vanessa german Breathe from the Diaphragm: our eyes are in our lungs
September 2 - November 1, 2025
Breathe from the Diaphragm: our eyes are in our lungs offers respite from the volatility and injustice of today’s world with work that focuses on selflessness, love, and the alignment of heart and mind. Pulling from precolonial and African diasporic traditions, particularly those of her ancestral Kongolese lineage in Central Africa, german’s anthropomorphic sculptures employ mineral crystals, beads, glass, and many found objects that allude to the symbolism of Nkisi N’kondi, or Power Figures, which are believed to be spiritually charged figures used for healing, protection, and justice. The blue accents in the exhibition complement the healing energies of the work with its chromatic link to water.
As the artist reflects: “There is something magnificent and perfect about water. We can access what’s within us to heal from the physical, spiritual, and intellectual harm of an unjust world.” Blue becomes a symbol not only of life but of the boundless inner reservoirs of resilience and restoration. Echoed in the title for this exhibition is the practice of deep diaphragmatic breathing, a meditative act and metaphor for grounding and release. This physical focus mirrors the broader spiritual journey the work invites: a return to the self, to ancestral wisdom, and to a holistic sense of being. Breathe from the Diaphragm becomes a space of quiet resistance and a site where art, spirit, and breath unite.
Curated by Mary Salvante in collaboration with Kasmin Gallery and the artist.
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Breathe from the Diaphragm catalog
Breathe from the Diaphragm gallery guide
vanessa german is a citizen artist working in sculpture, performance, and communal ritual to cultivate spiritual models for transforming human experience. Her sculptures are as much defined by their tangible elements as their transcendental properties, a combination which the artist describes as the ingredients of her work. Since the early 2010s, she has assembled ritualistic structures known as power figures using glass, beads, gemstones, nails, wood, and other objects. Whether mineral crystals originating in the earth millennia ago, or cobalt blue bottles resembling those used in bottle tree traditions for generations, every object chosen by german channels frequencies that span its entire existence. Guided by her own creativity, imagination, and curiosity, german follows her intuition about the capacity for objects to tell stories, creating sculptures that resonate deeply with those who encounter them.
After many years running a community studio, garden, outdoor theater, and artist residency called ARThouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, german (born 1976) now lives in Asheville, North Carolina. She has received numerous honors, including the Joyce Foundation Fellowship, Heinz Award for the Arts, Don Tyson Prize from the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Jacob Lawrence Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant. Her solo and two-person exhibitions include at the NSU Art Museum, Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago, Mulvane Art Museum, Mt. Holyoke College Art Museum, The Frick Pittsburgh, Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, Flint Institute of Arts, Figge Art Museum, among many other. Her work is in the collections of the Ackland Art Museum, Akron Art Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, Crocker Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, Everson Museum of Art, Figge Art Museum, Flint Institute of Arts, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Montclair Art Museum, ChicagoMuseum of Contemporary Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Contemporary Art, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Speed Art Museum, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, and Wichita Art Museum among others. She has been represented by Kasmin Gallery since 2021.
Kasmin Gallery Artists: vanessa german
Photo credit: Charlie Rubin
