What do you recall when you think back on your childhood vacations? Often, it is particular objects that give shape to our memories and stir feelings of nostalgia or longing. For Mimi Kohler, her childhood dream took shape as a 1.60-meter-tall, silver-gray inflatable dolphin with a dazed smile – the very embodiment of water fun and summer vacations. Nearly 30 years later, it becomes the centerpiece of her solo exhibition “Air Baby” at KunstvereinNürtingen – as a relic, a personal memento, and an artistic focal point. What began as a playful endeavor evolved into an exploration of the symbolism and cultural history of the dolphin. Through it, Kohler examines questions of childhood, life choices, femininity, and sexuality.

The dolphin is enveloped in a sound piece. With “Guten Abend, Gute Nacht,” the artist sings Johannes Brahms’ lullaby that was once sung to her as a child. Now it is she who wishes to bring peace to the monumental image of her toy. Yet this remains impossible. Since their natural habitat offers no safe haven, dolphins sleep while swimming, with only one hemisphere of the brain shut down and one eye always open. 

Despite the engagement with dreamlike, ethereal constructs, Mimi Kohler does not build castles in the air. She manifests a 7-meter-long inflatable dolphin. The sculpture doubles down on animal exaggeration: marine mammal and big cat collide. While leopard print is often read as a symbol of wildness, desire, and eroticism, the dolphin is among the animals that engage in sexuality both for pleasure and, at times, violently. Both aspects run counter to the image of the friendly, playful, gentle dolphin on which the inflatable toy is also based.

Mimi Kohler’s works pick up precisely here: through cross-references and with a wink, they lay bare such ambivalences. At the same time, they reflect on idealized images of the past. The dolphin becomes a symbol of how imagination and reality collide and diverge – a balancing act between social expectations and individual dreams. (Text: Antonia Rittgeroth)