Stolon", by Azade Köker at Zilberman

Photo: Disclosure
A forest of thirteen paper columns that move with every breath of air sets the tone for "Stolon", Azade Köker's new solo exhibition at Zilberman, with text by Lotte Laub. The title comes from botany: a stolon is a shoot that grows close to the ground from a mother plant, feeding a new seedling until it can sustain itself—an image the Turkish-German artist uses to consider how human bonds sustain and also trap. In the installation "Schwankende Säulen" (2025-26), paper columns rolled like tree bark recall and subvert the figure of the caryatid: instead of supporting a ceiling, each column drops a strip of paper that intertwines with its neighbors, forming a web on the floor. "Im Netz des Ich" (2025-26) suspends a paper sphere with the inscription "ICH" within a network of intertwined strips—the same network that can save or imprison. Wire and light installations complete the exhibition, evoking synapses and nerve ramifications, while small-format collages materialize hybrid figures between human, animal, and plant. Köker, who has a fifty-year career spanning terracotta sculpture and paper works, participated this year in Manifesta 16 Ruhr and the exhibition "Labouring Bodies" at the Tinguely Museum in Basel.