Name: What an old Woman Will Wear
Start: 2026-05-14T13:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-06-07T20:00:00+02:00
Location: Kasseler Kunstverein e. V.

What an old Woman Will Wear at the Kassel Art Association: Painting between Body, Language, and Vulnerability

With What an old Woman Will Wear, the Kassel Art Association presents an exhibition by Tanja Nis-Hansen, who understands painting as a space for thought and aesthetic experience. The 30 large-format oil paintings form the acronym GRWM, a reference to digital self-presentation that is here translated into the physical presence of the exhibition space. Between text, image, and performance, a multifaceted art experience emerges, negotiating questions of body, age, role, and mortality with great formal clarity.

Painting as Language, Space as Resonating Body

Nis-Hansen works in the expanded field of painting and uses language not as a commentary but as material. Everyday formulas, abbreviations, and phrases tip into ornamental image structures, while the oil paint condenses the surfaces and repeatedly draws the viewer's attention back to the physical side of the image. The exhibition gains its tension from the interplay of surface, writing, and condensation: Painting becomes a medium of perception, not just representation.

GRWM: An Acronym Becomes a Typographic Landscape

GRWM, or Get Ready With Me, originates from the logic of social media. In Kassel, this abbreviation is not exhibited as a fashion term but read as a cultural symptom. The works translate a digital phenomenon into the real exhibition situation, thus opening a space for reflection on self-presentation, female attributions, and the pressure of constant visibility. It is precisely this shift that makes the exhibition particularly appealing to art history-interested visitors: It connects contemporary culture with a precise artistic formulation.

Vulnerability, Body Image, and Mortality

At the center of the exhibition are physical and mental states that are often suppressed: vulnerability, exhaustion, aging, and mortality. Nis-Hansen does not examine these themes illustratively, but through the language of painting. This creates images that oscillate between proximity and distance, between irony and seriousness, between intimate self-examination and societal diagnosis. The image spaces open up like stages for a quiet but intense examination of the work.

A Look at Artistic Practice and Recognition

Tanja Nis-Hansen, born in 1988 in Denmark, lives and works in Berlin and Copenhagen. She studied, among others, at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg with Jutta Koether and received funding and invitations to numerous international exhibitions. Her practice encompasses painting, text, and performance; especially her duo CONNY shows how consistently she connects different artistic formats. Critical voices describe her works as characterized by dreamlike condensation and a strong engagement with the tradition of painting.

Voices of the Visitors

On Instagram, the artist accompanies her work with a visible, contemporary presence. The exhibition language in Kassel is therefore likely to particularly appeal to visitors seeking current art, feminist perspectives, and media-critical image strategies in a concentrated art experience.

Conclusion

What an old Woman Will Wear is an exhibition for all who wish to experience painting as an intellectually and sensually charged medium. Those who engage with Tanja Nis-Hansen's image world encounter a clever, poetic, and contemporary confrontation with body, language, and self-image. A visit to the Kassel Art Association is definitely worthwhile, as this exhibition makes the present of painting visibly with great formal strength.