For her solo exhibition at Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, titled “Cent Dent,” Berlin-based artist Nora Schultz focuses on the tone of her adopted city and its blackened mood. “Berlin is dark and cold these days, and people—if there are any—are grousing at each other,” reads the press release.
The use of the word “grouse” in this context works when paired with the description of “the Berliner snout,” the text goes on to describe; it brings to mind the jarring snarl and bared teeth of an angry dog, and leads us to the central theme of the show: teeth.
Sculptures resembling molars and incisors which might have been pulled out by a dentist are adhered to the ceilings, sit on the gallery floor, or are set on view in a large wooden display case that’s part of the gallery’s original fixtures. A 2017 video, which runs at the length of roughly 11 minutes, begins with a view from the bottom of a courtyard or other entrapped space, and a voiceover eerily echoing, “Berlin: City of Teeth.”
The film, titled Cent Dent (Centre Dental The Movie Part 3), is described as “complete fiction, a movie in 3 parts and this 3rd part is for Berlin.”
The exhibition’s accompanying text introduces the concept of playing with words, the flux of language, and ultimately homes in on the tooth as the “dysfunctional language machine inside the mouth.”
While seemingly dedicated to the city where she lives and works, Schultz’s overall presentation in “Cent Dent” offers a bleak portrayal of Berlin and its residents, claiming that with this so-called Berliner snout, people are spitting on one another.
Nora Schultz, “Cent Dent,” is on at Isabella Bortolozzi Galerie, Berlin, through February 18.