De mens is geen vogel (Man is no bird)
German artist Raphaela Vogel presents her first large-scale solo exhibition in Belgium, at Kunstenhuis Z33. With De mens is geen vogel (Man Is no Bird), Vogel brings together an immersive world of image, sound and movement - an exhibition you feel with your whole body.
The exhibition's title, De mens is geen vogel (Man Is no Bird), is at once a nod to the artist's own surname. At the same time, it refers to a poem written by German writer Bertolt Brecht around a hundred years ago, about a tailor from Ulm who, in the year 1592, was convinced he could fly. He jumps from the church roof, hoping to fly away, and plunges to his death. Afterwards, the bishop speaks the famous words: "Man is not a bird. Man will never fly." For Raphaela Vogel, this is an image for how power determines what we consider possible or permitted. Her work continually explores that boundary.
For this exhibition, Vogel creates a brand new, monumental installation: an anatomical model of an eye almost two meters wide, from which a group of "tears" hang, found Art Deco lamps she equipped with light and speakers. Visitors walk straight through the tears to enter the exhibition and, from the middle, can look right into the iris. It is the literal and figurative starting point of the exhibition: a gateway into the world of Raphaela Vogel.
Alongside this new work, Z33 presents around ten large installations in which video, sculpture, painting and sound come together, each with its own story, ranging from a hidden history of war to dancing dinosaurs.
Stets blieb ich fest (I always stood firm), 2026
This artwork is inspired by a group of Art Deco lamps that Raphaela Vogel discovered in an obscure second-hand shop. Initially attracted to the glass lamps because of their resemblance to giant tears, Vogel decided to follow this first association and dramatically amplify the effect. These tear-lamps now fall from a giant anatomical model of a human eye, custom-made specifically for the exhibition. Coloured LED lights and speakers have been embedded in each tear. You are invited to walk into the circle of tears and look up into the iris of the eye.
The lights pulse and flicker in response to a soundtrack composed and performed by Vogel. The soundtrack blends two songs. The first is loosely based on In C by minimalist composer Terry Riley. Each of the instruments in this performance –bagpipes, marimba, tuba, oboe, organ and bass – are connected to a specific tear. The second song is a cover of an unpublished work by composer Erich Hopp. (You will find more information about Hopp in the description of Found Subject).
This ambitious new work acts as a gateway into the world of the artist. It gazes down like a powerful all-seeing eye but simultaneously expresses vulnerability: it weeps before us. Its glass tears bathe us in light, colour and sound. Within the work there is a strong contrast of meaning: the scientific, rational model of the eye versus the emotional reality of when tears actually appear: during moments of sorrow, happiness, fear or grief.
ZucKeR, totholZ, schimmel (Sugar, Deadwood, Mould), 2026
These three diminutive Art Nouveau nymphs – Zucker (sugar), Totholz (deadwood) and Schimmel (mould) – originally clasped hands in a dance of kitschy joy. Vogel retooled this found bronze sculpture by separating each nymph from the group. To maintain their balance, each hand now grasps a walking stick handmade by the artist. Some sticks support the sculptures, whilst others project into the air.
In the public spaces of any European city, one finds many statues of heroic men, such as political figures or war heroes. Women, on the other hand, are often depicted in unspecific or generic roles, such as decorative elements on buildings or fountains. Often, these women are found dressed in very little, or nothing at all. In Zucker, Totholz, Schimmel, Vogel’s adjustments to the found sculpture create a new atmosphere: what was angelic and harmonious becomes disruptive, wild, or even witchy.
Knightness paintings, 2026
Next to Zucker, Totholz, Schimmel, we find a new series of triangular paintings on animal hides, which are named after female knights. Vogel often uses triangular structures in her work. For the artist they have an energetic power, which she sees as both feminine and destabilizing. These paintings depict crouched female forms whose buttocks and thighs frame monstrous heraldic crests. Together, the sculptures and paintings resemble ritual objects for a cult of womanhood.
ab jetZt WiRD DuRchgeblüht: music for anRaineR of aiRpoRts (From Now On, Continuous Flowering: Music for Neighbors of Airports), 2025
Five video projectors hang from a curvy metal structure that is centrally placed within the gallery. The video is splintered between several kaleidoscopic projections, which slowly revolve around the walls and floor of the gallery. The video was recorded in a small glass pavilion in the garden of the artist’s Eichwalde home. Within the work, we see a Godzilla-like Vogel towering over us as the camera crawls across the ground below her. To record it, the artist attached a camera to her son’s electrical trainset. The soundtrack features the noisy roar of passing airplanes, a playfully incongruous counterpart to the towering woman and tiny train.
At one point in the video, Vogel can be heard performing a cover of the controversial punk song Deutschland muss sterben (...damit wir leben können) (Germany must die (…so we can live)) by Slime (1981). The title of the song flips a line from the war poem Soldatenabschied by Heinrich Lersch (1914): “Germany must live, even if we must die,” which was later co-opted as a Nazi slogan. The song by Slime became a left-wing rallying cry against the nationalist and neo-liberal policies of the German government in the 1980s and 1990s.
No tengo preguntas, solo respuestas (I Have No Questions, Only Answers), 2025
A ring of five dinosaurs crawl around a large, hanging question mark – all cast in bronze. A speaker embedded within the question mark plays a selection of musical compositions that mimic the sound of trains. These sounds subtly animate the walking dinosaurs. At a certain point in the soundscape, Vogel sings a cover of 96 Tears (1966) by the band Question Mark and The Mysterians, whose members were children of Mexican workers in the Detroit automotive industry. Famously, it was the first song ever to be described as ‘punk’. The leader of the band, Rudi Martinez, is a visionary who has sometimes claimed he is from Mars and that he has danced with dinosaurs.
The accompanying paintings, Signos de inter y ex, by Vogel blend imagery from Question Mark and The Mysterians with train imagery. Railroads ushered in a new era of modernisation across the world and transformed the consciousness of many. In the US, trains can be linked to the development of new musical styles such as the steam-locomotive rhythms used in blues and country music.
International Comparison, 2024
International Comparison is a series of sculptures made from shards of an oil drum; these works share the same material origin as the projector screens of the installation Found Subject. Delicately hanging from the top point of each shard are antique pharmacy scales. The measuring scales hold small photographs of contestants from Miss Universe 1930.
With each photo occupying a single scale, the ‘beauty comparison’ becomes humorously literal: a comparison of the weight of each photograph. One of the women featured in these photographs is Carla Boehl who collaborated with Erich Hopp on the Miss Germany Tango which is featured in Vogel's installation I am Touching.
I Am Touching, 2023
At the centre of I Am Touching is a large 3D scanner, which, at 30-second intervals, takes a 360-degree image of the interior space of the scanner. Within a fraction of a second, 70 single-lens reflex cameras capture every angle. Seconds later, these fractured images are projected onto the rear wall of the gallery. Then the recording vanishes. You, as a visitor, are invited to step inside and become part of the artwork.
Above the 3D scanner hangs an aluminium pyramid displaying a video of Vogel performing inside the scanner. At one point, she sings Jede Frau ist schön (Every Woman is Beautiful), written by Erich Hopp in collaboration with the composer Carla Boehl, one of the first winners of the Miss Germany competition in 1931. Through its unedited, distorted imagery, I Am Touching explores the tension between physical and virtual space, making their increasingly blurred boundary more concrete.
Kopfschuss (Headshot), 2018
In Kopfschuss, the head of an antique bucking horse is shot through with a splatter of luscious blood-red cables attached to speakers. The speaker cables project outwards from the head and ricochet against the ceiling before tumbling back towards the floor. This is one of Vogel’s early experiments with uniting sound and sculpture. For the artist, sound can bring sculpture to life; it can give a statue, something normally seen as static, a duration.
About the artist
Raphaela Vogel (b. 1988, Nuremberg, Germany) studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, as well as the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg. She has been a visiting professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe and is currently a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich.
Raphaela Vogel’s practice is installation-based, fusing sculpture, sound, and film, often appearing in iterations of the latter as herself. Vogel plays with varied media and materials to generate energy and tension, finding uncanny harmonies among seemingly disparate source imagery. Through her works, Vogel pushes the viewer into disruptive, fantastical territories.
Raphaela Vogel’s exhibition, De mens is geen vogel (Man is No Bird), opens October 4, 2026, at Z33 in Belgium and will remain on view through February 7, 2027. Vogel’s debut exhibition with Petzel, titled In the Expanded Penalty Box: Did You Happen to See the Most Beautiful Fox?, was on view in January 2024, and was complemented by an artist talk and live performance event at the Goethe-Institut New York.
Vogel was included in the 2022 Venice Biennale exhibition The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani, and has had recent solo exhibitions at institutions such as Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2025); Kunsthalle Gießen, Gießen (2024); Centre d’art contemporain – la synagogue de Delme, Delme (2024); Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg (2024); De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg (2023); Kunstverein am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin (2023); Kleiner Wasserspeicher, Berlin (2021); Neues Museum, Nürnberg (2020); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz (2019); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2019); Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren (2018); Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (2018); Kunstpalais, Erlangen (2018); Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster (2016); Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2015); among others. Vogel’s works have also been acquired by select institutions, including Centraal Museum, Utrecht and Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht.