With her continued focus on fluid, Claudia Schmacke, with this latest exhibition, couples two distinctly different pieces – a video, Umbilicus, and an installation of buckets filled with mud-like porcelain titled Lost Ocean. Interesting in the pairing of these two works is the interaction of sound from the two pieces and the viewer’s auditory connection to them. With Umbilicus, the viewer sees a close up of a fountain drainpipe with the ebb and flow of draining water being sucked out in spurts and gurgles. Lost Ocean, with its buckets of viscous porcelain and air pumps fed in by tubing, bubbles and burps like mud pits.

Born and raised in Germany, Schmacke earned her M.F.A. from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. She now teaches at the Düsseldorf Academy. In addition to exhibiting consistently and extensively through solo and group shows in Germany, Schmacke’s work has been presented in Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Norway, Poland and the United States. Schmacke has had residencies at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, the Bemis Foundation in Omaha, Nebraska, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in New York, and Smack-Mellon Studios in Brooklyn. Since her New York solo debut at Plane Space in 2003, Schmacke has, among other exhibitions, had a solo show at the Goethe Institute in Brazil, was part of the First International Lodz Biennale in Poland and most recently had a two person exhibition at the Casa di Goethe in Rome. The Saint Louis Art Museum in Missouri and the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts recently appointed Schmacke as the Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellow for the 2008-09 academic year.