Repetition breaks the spirit, even for fake flowers. At least, this was the case in Rachel Youn’s solo exhibition “Pleasure Circuit,” at the Berlin-based gallery Soy Capitan, which brought together five of Youn’s new kinetic sculptures and a series of previously unseen flower drawings, posing questions about the desire economy and our relationship to objects that are made to optimize domestic life. The exhibited sculptures were composed of fake flowers and discarded electrical home devices that the artist sourced in the months leading up to the exhibition’s opening during Berlin Art Week in mid-September, drawing from flea markets and second-hand online platforms. In this sense, the exhibition served as a visual reflection of domestic life in Berlin, revealing the inner makings of gendered labor, patriarchal power structures, and the relationship between human bodies and machines.
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