GREIGE GHOSTS

By Isabel Nolan and Ani Schulze

The exhibition GREIGE GHOSTS by Ani Schulze and Isabel Nolan interweaves two international artistic positions into a joint site-specific installation at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter in Cologne.
 
At the invitation of curator Anne Mager, Cologne-based artist Ani Schulze and Dublin-based artist Isabel Nolan, who will represent Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 2026, are showing their work together for the first time. Following an intensive exchange, they present new sculptures, paintings, photographs, and drawings created specifically for Sankt Peter alongside existing works in an installation-based exhibition parcours. Their shared starting point is a detailed exploration of the architectural and sacred space.
 
Playful, subversive, melancholic—almost ghostly themselves—Isabel Nolan and Ani Schulze intervene in the church and exhibition space with their joint installation, tracing the ghosts of the past, of Sankt Peter, the Kolumba Museum, and Paul Thek. At the same time, their works imitate essential elements of the church's functionality, such as the furnishings—windows, pews, plinths, and display cases in the ubiquitous gray-beige hue of "Raffia Greige" found in St. Peter's—thus seamlessly integrating themselves into the institution.
 
Both artists employ a broad spectrum of media in their artistic practice: from sculpture and installation to painting and drawing, and from video in Ani Schulze's work to text and tapestries in Isabel Nolan's. Beyond their cross-genre approach, they share an interest in interpersonal systems of order, present and past rituals, cosmological chaos, and historical-mythological narratives.
 
The approximately three-month exhibition GREIGE GHOSTS brings the two artists together in a site-specific and international dialogue within and with the church space. It deliberately breaks with the principle of solo presentation at the Kunst-Station Sankt Peter, whose program focuses primarily on solo exhibitions by individual artists. At the same time, it expands the scope of a dialogue space for art, architecture, and liturgy to include the direct artistic exchange between two unusual contemporary female artists.
 
Without dominating each other, the expansive exhibition connects references to the exhibition history of St. Peter's, mythological and intimate personal references, and architectural allusions. Between cosmic order and chaos, past and present, spirituality and everyday life, Ani Schulze and Isabel Nolan penetrate the various niches of St. Peter's and, with subtle humor and rich staging, ask: Who is allowed to haunt the church? Whose spirit may inhabit this space?

Art Station St. Peter,
Jabachstr. 1, 50676 Cologne (Entrance: Leonhard-Tietz-Str. 6)

Opening: Friday, November 6, 2026, 5 pm Welcome: Guido Schlimbach Introduction: Anne Mager Organ Improvisation: Michael Veltman November 6, 2026 – January 30, 2027 Wed–Sun 12–6 pm 

Additional events: Saturday, November 7, 2026, 1/2 pm Special Lunch Concert & Exhibition Tour 1 pm: Lunch Concert 2 pm: Exhibition Tour with Ani Schulze and Anne Mager Supported by the Arts Foundation NRW, Create Ireland and the Cologne Rubens Society.