Solo show by Ines Lechleitner curated by Alexis Hymann Wolff at LISBETH, Berlin (Sept 2025 - April 2026)
Elements:
Fertility Of Stone. fig. a-i: black-and-white photographs, gelatin silver prints, 2025
Fertility of Stone – Sediment Sentiment: Eau de Parfum, 2025
Untitled: paper etching in English, German and Braille with ink on transparent paper
Score for ‘Fertility of Stone – Sediment Sentiment’: ink drawing with scent sticks and cloth on transparent paper, 2025
Fertility of Stone, fig.b, Ines Lechleitner, 2025
Text by ALexis Hymann Wolff, accompanying the exhibition:
“For the exhibition “Fertility of Stone” in LISBETH Ines Lechleitner presents a series of analog black-and-white photographs taken in 2025 in the “Giardino dell’Impossibile”, an underground botanical garden created over a lifetime through the devoted efforts of its founder Maria Gabriella Campo and her family within the whinstone quarries of Favignana, Sicily. In the labyrinthine recesses of the mined land, citrus trees, succulents and flowering plants have found refuge from the otherwise rugged and windswept landscape of the island.
The photographs reveal traces of various mining techniques on the site, which date back to the 17th century and through to the 1950s, when work in the quarry ceased. Whether formed through the use of rudimentary hand tools or modern mining equipment, these traces speak to us in graphic signs etched into the stone. Certain marks are traces of labour, others signs of leisure.
Ines Lechleitner was introduced to the Garden on a research trip with architect and friend Alba Balmaseda Dominguez, with whom she collaborates on topics of water and spaces of bathing culture. This photographic series emerged from a spontaneous and urgent impulse to capture the unique dynamic of these positive-negative spaces: the positive space (the whinstone) was removed to construct further positive spaces (buildings) in the area, while the negative space of the quarry has created a microclimate and the possibility of the garden.
Since gardening began in the 1960s in this unlikely, sunken and cavernous landscape, an unfath- omable vegetation has flourished amidst the stone. What seemed like an impossible endeavor has become reality and today the “Giardino dell’Impossibile” is one of the “Grandi Giardini Italiani.” “Fertility of Stone” brings us back to the site of the Cemetery Sophien II, a landscape of stone and greenery, where etchings tell stories of past lives and questions of permanence, transience and cyclical time can be explored.
Fertility of Stone, fig.a, Ines Lechleitner, 2025
Fertility of Stone, fig.c, Ines Lechleitner, 2025
Fertility of Stone, fig.e, Ines Lechleitner, 2025
Fertility of Stone, fig.f, Ines Lechleitner, 2025
“The hand-printed photographs whose particular translation of depth has developed in the dark room, gain in dimensionality as we move from the Café into the Guard House. Mirrored in large fabric prints, they take on an airy and spatial character. Entering the Guard House, the photo- graphic image has become an installation, a simulation of a rock cave, reproducing the theatricality of how space reveals itself in the “Giardino dell’Impossibile”.
Lechleitner’s reflections on the Garden also become spatial through scent. Working with the sense of smell and the creation of unique scents that act as companions in moments of transition, Ines Lechleitner has created a scent for the “Giardino dell’Impossibile,” which visitors are invited to take in as a way of transporting to inner landscapes.
In her Score for Fertility of Stone – Sediment Sentiment, she visualized her process of composing the scent as a time-based story on the skin. For Untitled, Ines has etched into transparent paper in German, English and Braille the story of the making of the scent. Visitors are invited to touch the drawing, to spray the perfume on their skin or an object: an invitation to voyage."
The Guard House, installation view, photo: Ines Lechleitner
Fertility of Stone, installation view, photo: Ines Lechleitner
Fertility of Stone – Sediment Sentiment: Eau de Parfum & score drawing, installation view. Photo: Ines Lechleitner, 2025
Fertility of Stone – Sediment Sentiment: Eau de Parfum, installation view. Photo: Ines Lechleitner, 2025
Score for "Fertility of Stone – Sediment Sentiment". Photo: Ines Lechleitner, 2025
Untitled, paper etching, installation view, photo: Ines Lechleitner
Untitled, paper etching, installation view, photo: Ines Lechleitner
Untitled, paper etching, installation view, photo: Ines Lechleitner