ALL ACCESS
18 Feb – 18 March 2023, Neukölln
Jennifer Bannert/Felix Becker/Jennifer König/Patricia Lambertus/Lukas Liese/Katrin Paul/Nicholas Sayer Wells
Foto Credit: Mark Feigman
Curated by Isabella Sedeka
MARIE ATHENSTAEDT / JENNIFER BANNERT / FELIX BECKER
bn+BRINANOVARA / BRAM BRAAM / ASTRID BUSCH
MARTIN FEISTAUER / ENNE HAEHNLE / CHRISTIAN HENKEL
CHRISTIAN HOLZE / FRANK JIMIN HOOP / JUDITH KAMINSKI
JENNIFER KÖNIG / PATRICIA LAMBERTUS / ANNA NIEDHART
CAROLIN OTT / KATRIN PAUL / CHARLOTTE RAHN
MATTHIAS REINMUTH / DOROTHÉE LOUISE RECKER
MARA SANDROCK / GARY SCHLINGHEIDER
ISABELLA SEDEKA /MALWINE STAUSS
SONJA SOFIA YAKOVLEVA
The perception of nature and the city through digital devices takes us to unknown places and sharpens our eye for details. At the same time, the image is alienated by filters and viewing angles. Sometimes the filter version corresponds more to the sublime feeling we experience physically than the pale photographed reality. Perception decouples from reality and becomes subjective experience, leading to the creation of fantasy worlds in retelling and then sharing on social media. The development of artistic means, such as industrial highly complex materials or digital devices, influence the development of the artistic narrative, as well as the viewer’s perception.
Judith Kaminski’s artistic work plays with floral forms, bright colours and a formal image structure clearly defined by layers. The basis of her motifs are conventional botanical illustrations whose origins lie between natural science and art. Reduced to their form and arranged with colour gradients, grids and playful details, these illustrations become the subject of her pictorial world. In the process, habits of seeing from the digital realm, such as the arrangement of elements on displays or tools of digital processing, find influence in the colour and form design and the formal image structure.
Reflecting on our constructed landscapes and these insecure times caused by an evolutionary pandemic, Bram Braam has created some post-apocalyptic architectural ruins of our time. Many of the works are hybrid forms and can be interpreted ambivalently in all respects. Destruction and creation, nature and the artificial, architecture and the organic. The work shows a complex agglomeration where natural rock melts together with the remains of manmade industrial objects as a modern mutant from our time.
Inspiration for the work partly came from the urban environment in Berlin and the lifecycle of objects neglected on the streets. Often broken motorbikes are sitting for months in public spaces and every week you can see the decline is at a different stage, sometimes by the end there’s only a skeleton left. A metaphor of our daily existence and lifecycle. Bram Braam have used these leftovers from the motorbikes on the streets as a starting point, to let them evolve in the installation modern mutants.
Carolin Ott continues to explore the theme of invasive species in her new ceramic works. The growing formats are intended to be sprawling and encroaching with their size. Invasive, in order to be able to face a human being.
Since 2020, Carolin Ott has been placing familiar taxonomies between plant and animal corporealities in an ambivalent relationship. Carolin Ott collects systematic and scientific information about fragments of forms in nature – basic botanical forms and zoological blueprints.
Carolin Ott is interested in carnivorous plants that digest animals in traps instead of an autotrophic way of life that is common for plants. Based on these themes, Ott creates sculptural „new formations“ out of ceramics.
In the first vascular cycle from spring 2020, Ott thematised plant guidance systems from a macro perspective. In the following cycle, Carolin Ott has further developed her formal language based on patterns of inflorescences.
Text edit: Isabella Sedeka
26 Feb – 3 April 2022
In the duo exhibition ‚Let’s go see the stars, the milkey way or even mars‘.
the young artists Marie Athenstaedt and Jorinde Fischer deal with the galactic spectrum of colors and shapes.
Marie Athenstaedt points out that the spectrum of colors we can perceive describes only a tiny part of light. This fragment characterizes our reality. Beyond that exists an infinitely large area of the not visible light, which generates likewise infinitely many realities. The painter traces this area of the tangibly invisible in her mist-like paintings.
In her installation work, Jorinde Fischer playfully deals with site-specific sculptures that contain textile fabrics of varying elasticity and tension. Tautly stretched or loosely hanging, the artist presents materials, through decidedly minimal interventions and allows them to enter into physical states that are stimulated by their colorful presence.
15 Jan – 20 Feb 2022
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.“
The quote from George Santayana (philosopher) hangs in Berlin’s Gesundbrunnen subway stop above the entrance to Berlin’s Underworlds.
Thinking about the future and the past is one of the critical features of being human.
The Trio – exhibition remember the future with Jennifer Bannert, Patricia Lambertus and Mara Sandrock deals with historical events and the role of life in its transience.
Jennifer Bannert’s afterglow series is based on a photographic work made in Marseille and shows the skins of various species of fish. Since the fish were sold at the Old Port not long after being caught, the skins still shimmer in many colorful nuances. Life, only just expired, still appears visible.
Patricia Lambertus‘ visually powerful spatial installation is based on the historical wall paintings of the ancient city of Pompeii and brings them into a contemporary context. Within the pictorial space there are diverse layers of images that can be read like archaeological stratigraphies. The installation by Patricia Lambertus moves in the tension between fiction and reality as well as between beauty and destruction. Historical-social events and their contexts as well as their relevance and resonance in the present are traced and pictorially realized. The focus here is on the fractures, cracks and interfaces.
In Mara Sandrock’s works, the traditional materials of painting are stripped of their usual functions and combined with materials from other origins such as intestines, leather, latex, paper, wax or bio cellulose. Through manipulation and neglect, new works are created, which the performative character of the artistic material. They grow and proliferate, layer, curl and clench, expand and contract. Partly directed and induced, partly unpredictable and difficult to control. The selected materials are in a constant process of change. The idea of the unfinished nature of the image plays as much a role as the thoughts of decay and the finiteness of works of art.
Text edit: Isabella Sedeka
The word „pwned“ originated in video game culture is a derivative of the word „owned,“ due to the proximity of the „o“ and „p“ keys. It is typically used to indicate that someone has been controlled or compromised, e.g., „I was pwned in the Adobe data breach.“
Artworks in the digital realm raises many new questions, especially about authorship.
Specifically in light of global digital networks, the question arises of how traditional collecting societies should deal with the changing environment. Not least, the current discussion about NFTs illustrates the topicality of this issue. In a blockchain, for example, all data sequences are protected. However, artists have always copied other artists or been inspired by them. A central question that arises from this is, at what point does one speak of a new work of art and a new authorship?
In the digital world, not only is an idea recycled, but complete data sets are used that an artist has already used before. Can we apply known theories, such as the expanded concept of art, to the artistic digital realm?
On the visual result level, a new work of art is created relatively quickly. If a small string of characters is inserted in a comparable way, as with human DNA, this has a large visible impact, even if 99,9% of the data set remains the same.
Chrisitan Holze experiments even further in his new works.
He mixes historically known works of art that he finds in the internet with 3D programs and puts a randomly selected particle simulation over the historical layer. Then the work is printed and painted over anlog.
To take the whole thing to the extreme, he creates a file with the new work and makes it available to everyone according to the open source idea that originated back in the 80s.
Only the analog work can be used in the traditional sense.
The digital work is made freely available to society.
Text: Isabella Sedeka
In the border areas of painting, printmaking and drawing we find the works of Jennifer König. Jennifer König creates unique characteristics, which oscillate between phenomenon and conception. The young Leipzig artist takes us into her creative process and lets us become part of it.
The solo exhibition ‚OUTLINES‘ ascribes central importance to the application of paint, the pictorial surface, the interface of color intrinsic value and the materiality of color. Here Jennifer König is interested in how the process of making becomes part of the painting. This means that the application of color is not subordinated to the subject matter or motif of the painting, but rather that the painting emerges from the application of color – from the process of painting. In the examination of gesture, color and line, surface as well as space, the essential potentials of painting are investigated. Thereby König works according to a procedure that resembles ‚painting backwards‘. (mehr …)
Painting and sculpture are mutually dependent in the works of Anna Nero and Gary Schlingheider and arise from the preoccupation with the transgression of boundaries between the two genres. Color and form are the focus of their engagement.
Fascinated by the gaudy banality of everyday life, Anna Nero uses quotes from advertising, fashion, and comics, as well as examples of abstract and concrete painting, to scratch the surface of things. At the heart of Nero’s work is the question of the thinghood of a work as a painterly image, its material properties, use, and aura.
Gary Schlingheider works in his paintings with monochrome surfaces, which are placed both next to each other and on top of each other. Schlingheider works in large formats, with powerful opaque colors and geometric, reduced bodies. With a reference to art historical models, such as the Minimalists Ellsworth Kelly or Frank Stella, Gary Schlingheider reexamines the boundaries between painting and sculpture. The result is a composition of clearly delineated geometric forms within the various layers.
German Version:
Malerei und Skulptur bedingen sich in den Werken von Anna Nero und Gary Schlingheider gegenseitig und entstehen aus der Beschäftigung mit der Grenzüberschreitung der beiden Gattungen. Dabei bilden Farbe und Form den Schwerpunkt der Auseinandersetzung.
Fasziniert von der knalligen Banalität des Alltags kratzt Anna Nero mit Hilfe von Zitaten aus Werbung, Mode und Comics sowie Beispielen abstrakter und konkreter Malerei an der Oberfläche der Dinge. Im Zentrum der Arbeiten von Nero steht die Frage nach der Dinghaftigkeit eines Werkes als malerisches Abbild, dessen materiellen Eigenschaften, Gebrauch und Aura.
Gary Schlingheider arbeitet in seinen Installationen mit monochromen Flächen, die sowohl nebeneinander als auch übereinander angeordnet werden. Schlingheider arbeitet mit kraftvollen opaken Farben und geometrischen, reduzierten Körpern. Unter Bezugnahme auf kunsthistorische Vorbilder, wie die Minimalisten Ellsworth Kelly oder Frank Stella, lotet Gary Schlingheider die Grenzen zwischen Malerei und Skulptur neu aus. Das Ergebnis ist eine temporäre Komposition aus klar umrissenen geometrischen Formen.
Edit: Tanya Most
From Adlershof with Love shows different positions of the artists XPINKY BERLIN represents, as well as guests. This creates an exciting exchange of different positions and disciplines of contemporary art. Especially young artists will find space in the interdisciplinary exhibition. In the first edition of all inclusive works of the artists Felix Becker, bn+BRINANOVARA, Charlotte Rahn and Isabella Sedeka can be seen.
From Adlershof with Love zeigt verschiedenen Positionen der Künstler*innen die XPINKY BERLIN vertritt, sowie Gäste. Somit entsteht ein spannender Austausch verschiedener Positionen und Disziplinen der zeitgenössischen Kunst. Vor allem junge Künstler*innen sollen in der interdisziplinären Ausstellung Raum finden. In der ersten Ausgabe von all inclusive sind Arbeiten der Künstler*innen Felix Becker, bn+BRINANOVARA, Charlotte Rahn und Isabella Sedeka zu sehen.
Text: Tanya Most
curated by Astrid Silvia Schönhagen & Isabella Sedeka
In the hunting room, we stage ourselves as conquerors of wild animal nature. Be it deer or boar hunting scenes on medieval tapestries, be it painted wall coverings with fights of exotic predators, or skillfully arranged still lives of dead birds: Over the centuries, animals of almost every species have made their way into the home like this. In the trophy room, man’s triumph over the hunted animal is staged most impressively. As a trophy, the dead animal has become part of the living human’s rooms and furnishings. The preserved animals’ bodies are souvenirs of successful hunts, and the glass eyed trophies are supposed to show the hunter’s love of nature. At the same time, the animal bodies create an eerie ambience of the ‘heimlich–unheimlich’. The ‘rendez-vous de chasse’ exhibition takes this ambivalent relationship between an appropriation of and a connection with nature in the interior as its starting point to explore the cruel and at the same time highly aestheticised staging of animals and nature in different spatial settings and/or scenographies. In this exploration, the show reflects upon the hunting room as a space of representation and illusion. By bringing a ‘rendez-vous de chasse’ (hunting party) into the gallery, Patricia Lambertus (*1970, DE), Carolin Ott (*1994, DE), and the artist duo bn+BRINANOVARA (*1993/94, IT) invite us to approach the topic from different directions.
In the exhibition -for one night only-, Jennifer Bannert and Christian Holze make the intangible inbetween become reality. Between gravity and ease, heaven and earth, the past and the present, brightness and real encountersultimately awaits us at the end.
Christian Holze’s works are the result of an exploration of epoch-specific transformations of images in art history. The series Cloth Collision explicitly deals with the image of the fold and its meaning in different epochs and translates them into virtual space. The contemporary adaptation of the folded imagery connects visual art with fashion & marketing and at the same time foregrounds the philosophy of the fold. Questions about commercialization, authorship and art as a brand are also inspirations for the works of Christian Holze.
In the paintings of Jennifer Bannert we can expect lightness in one moment and profoundly shaking heaviness in the next. The gaze wanders from one hue to another. At the same time these are rather dark than bright. As soon as you think you have fixed something, this achievement blurs into a fleeting moment. But if you catch one of the brighter color fields, it seems like a hopeful moment full of light.
Extract from Decolonial Healing: In Defense of Spiritual Technologies by Tabita Rezaire in the publication The Sage Handbook of Media & Migration, (2019)
Malwine Stauss and Sophie Utikal decided to escape together into a world of gentleness, where it is possible to be comfortable with fear, loneliness and the unknown.
Stauss allows history and abstactions to merge in her portraits and sculptures. At first the watercolor works and ceramic sculptures seem light and delicate, but on closer inspection one senses a deep strength in the figurative works. At the same time, the works of Malwine Stauss tell of intuition, connection and magical phenomena.
Utikal, is a textile artist whose methodology is to write poetic images, find feelings and then sew them together. Her textile works are handmade and touch on the theme of (personal) transformation – alone or with others. The focus is always on her brown body – this is how Sophie Utikal wants to address those whose bodies are usually not represented
in the full complexity of being: First, second, third generations of migrants in Germany, hybrids who constantly fall up and have to re-found their world.
German version:
Malwine Stauss und Sophie Utikal beschlossen gemeinsam in eine Welt der Sanftheit zu flüchten, in der es möglich ist sich mit Angst, Einsamkeit und dem Unbekannten wohlfühlen zu können.
Stauss lässt Geschichte und Abstaktionen in ihren Porträts und Skulpturen verschmelzen. Dabei wirken die aquarell Arbeiten und Keramikskulpturen zunächst leicht und zart, doch bei genauerem Betrachten spürt man eine tiefe Stärke der figürlichen Arbeiten. Dabei erzählen die Arbeiten von Malwine Stauss von Intuition, Verbundenheit und magischen Phänomenen.
Utikal, ist eine Textilkünstlerin, deren Methodik darin besteht, poetische Bilder zu dichten, Gefühle zu finden und diese dann zusammenzunähen. Ihre Textilarbeiten sind in Handarbeit entstanden und berühren das Thema der (persönlichen) Transformation – allein oder mit Anderen. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei immer ihr brauner Körper – so möchte Sophie Utikal diejenigen ansprechen, deren Körper meist nicht in voller Komplexität des Seins dargestellt werden: Erste, zweite, dritte Generationen von Migrant*innen in Deutschland, Hybride, die ständig rausfallen und sich ihre Welt neu begründen müssen.
Text: Sophie Utikal/Malwine Stauss
Edit: Tanya Most
The combination of nature (science) and art is nothing new. Everything is based on the individual perception, which can be based on science as well as natural science. The perception of the environment, the processing of information, the concentration of information on essential aspects of contemporary confrontations and the environment is a constantly recurring theme in modern society. The exhibition flourish – nature is a given fact asks about the cycle of deepening perception and nature in connection with individual physical action and the constantly changing social events. An artistic examination of nature and society through the works of Carolin Ott, bn+BRINANOVARA, silvia hornig, Katrin Paul, Charlotte Rahn and Isabella Sedeka.
Text: Carolin Ott / Tanya Most
From politics to natural sciences, each revolution removes the images of the former power. In other words, the revolutionary action of removing the power in force is exhibited by way of demolishing its images. Or rather, this is how it should be. In fact, it sounds more like: the revolution replaces the current power and its action goes through substituting the previous images with current analogues. Indeed, after each revolution a new power is established. Which means that after the revolution has happened, it becomes the power – just because there is no real possibility to keep a “spear sit” for the power-position. However, if the immediate consequence of revolution is the establishment of power, what if we subvert the image? Is it possible not to replace it with a newer one?
The long time of instability, which we are living because of the pandemic, unravels a “different thinking”: ourselves are the first thing to be subverted in order to act a real change. It seems that, many times, revolution cares more on revolution itself than on the revolutionaries. It’s all about the idea of the revolution, its image. Nonetheless, the peculiar contingency lets us experience how much the concrete presence of silence – as a result of the uncertainty – overwhelms the ephemeral presence of images. What if we take the advantage of this on – going revolution, this temporary hole, for not filling it?
The work Right to free the plinth concerns the fact of everyone being so into the idea of tearing the statue down that they don’t see the freed pedestal. We thought of focusing on the pedestal. If we unhinge the idea, taken for granted, of a pedestal for the statue, of the pedestal enslaved to the statue; if we subvert the order of the image imposed by the power, could the plinth stand alone?
Tutto Paletti is a kind of intimate activism for forgotten causes.
Text: bn+BRINANOVARA