opening May 21: TIZIANA JILL BECK | Ostrakon Stories

Tiziana Jill Beck’s new series of works takes its starting point from an ancient democratic instrument: the ostrakon, the pottery shard used in ancient Athens to vote on the exile of politicians. What sounds like a historical reference is, for Beck, a poignant image of the present day, in which democratic structures seem to be crumbling and trust in the community is being put to the test. The question that runs through her work is as simple as it is inescapable: what lies within a fragment? What story does it carry within it? In the exhibition space, Beck presents shards from the River Rhine, whose exact origin remains unknown. Untreated and unaltered, they stand as silent placeholders in the room: for the idea that something small and broken once decided political fates. Each paper work is paired with one of these shards, a continuous dialogue between object and image that runs through the entire exhibition.

In Ostrakon Stories, Tiziana Jill Beck sketches a picture of humanity that does not dissolve into clarity. The question of existence is rarely a straight path, but rather a web of associations and contradictions, and the courage to remain confused is perhaps the most human thing of all. In Beck’s work, the fragment is not repaired but exhibited. For it is precisely in this that what connects us becomes visible. This order is as fragile as the shards from which it takes its name, and the question of its stability is more relevant today than ever before.

Tiziana Jill Beck (b. 1982) studied at the Berlin-Weißensee School of Art and the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, where she graduated as a master student under Christoph Ruckhäberle. Following extended stays in Paris and South Korea, Tiziana Jill Beck now lives and works in Berlin.

Opening: Thursday, May 21, 2026, 6–9 p.m.
The artist will be present.

Tiziana Jill Beck
Ostrakon Stories
May 22 – August 1, 2026

In parallel with Tiziana Jill Beck’s solo presentation, Galerie Andreae is showing the exhibition Sommersprossen by the Viennese painter Max Freund in the SALON.