Category Archives: General

atb #32 | It’s all Chinese to me

Fouad Asfour, Ingo Gerken, Khwezi Gule, Bandile Gumbi, Amos Letsoalo, Sharlene Khan, Eva Seufert, Claudia Schneider

Opening Friday, 17 June – from 7 pm
18 June – 7 August 2011
open by appointment +49 (0)157 783 304 98

invited in the context of beyond language, an exchange project between South Africa and Germany, curated by Eva Seufert and Fouad Asfour, in collaboration with the Dead Revolutionaries Club, Johannesburg

After exhibitions, discussions, workshops and readings in Johannesburg, Soweto and Polokwane in winter 2011, for which Berlin based artists Eva Seufert and Ingo Gerken had been in South Africa, the exhibition in Berlin tries to focus on some of the raised questions.
Therefore we are happy to invite the South African artists Bandile Gumbi, Sharlene Khan und Claudia Shneider as well as the artist and curator of the Polokwane Art Museum Amos Letsoalo and the curator of the Hector Pieterson Museum Khwezi Gule.

The title of the exhibition relates to a constitutive misunderstanding in communication, caused by the volatility of meaning, which on the other hand generates the subversive potential of language.
The suggestion for direct speech would be to use language as material and material as language.

On June 30 Khwezi Gule, curator of the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto, will talk about the Soweto uprising against the implementation of Afrikaans as school language and the consequences of Bantu Education in South Africa.
for the first part of the project please visit : http://byndlanguage.blogspot.com/

atb #31 | based in berlin

Clegg & Guttmann

after the butcher @ based in berlin @ KUNSTWERKE-BERLIN e.V.

Allegory of Government, 2011

after the butcher is an independent exhibition space for contemporary art and social issues in berlin-lichtenberg, which is curatorially responsible for the third floor at KW. after our invitation to based in berlin, we have invited all berlin artists with whom we have already collaborated in our space or with whom we are currently working. asked us to develop contributions for this exhibition. six time-based, performative projects by six different groups of artists have emerged from an intensive discussion process. in the otherwise empty space there is only one picture commissioned for this exhibition, a portrait of the governing mayor of clegg & guttmann.

the reasons for this exhibition format lie in our contradiction against the politics of this exhibition project, which was aimed at as a “show of young art from berlin”, for the purpose of “proving” that berlin needs a new art hall.

an open call was sent to all berlin artists to apply for this exhibition, three “over curators” were appointed as advisory bodies and five young curators, and berliner kulturprojekte gmbh was commissioned to organise the whole thing.

1.7 million euros were made available by the politicians for this project. in times of limited financial resources and budget cuts on all sides, this is a big chunk that indicates that the politicians give this exhibition the highest priority.

we are artists – we love to make art and we do it with full dedication, but we loathe to define ourselves through “performance”. art does not function according to the laws of a steam turbine, nor those of an animal breeding association. art functions through intensities, resistance, contradictions and madness. art – even if it is permanently tried – cannot be objectified – art is form and content and bound to subjective perception, and that is a good thing. wanting to force ourselves into a “performance show” is an attack on our being: we need our laziness like our diligence, we need our nap like our wakefulness, we need our doubts, flops and failures as well as our highlights, we need contemplation as well as action. and we think, this doesn’t only concern us artists, these are universal qualities of human being par excellence, to hide them and to reduce us to “performance” degenerates us. and it often leads in its consequence to illness: stress, burn out, depression, drugs, suicide.

we have to emphasize this here because a correction of the conceptuality and thus an understanding for the justified protest on the part of politics not only failed to materialize but especially the governing mayor klaus wowereit stubbornly and ignorantly sticks to it and despite the change of title continues to call the exhibition a “performance show”.

we take part in this exhibition under protest, because the concerns of the fine arts are not really taken seriously by politics. wowereit’s declaration of intent in his inaugural speech after the re-election to found an art gallery in berlin was not followed by any practical steps. for us, it reads more like an empty promise that veils the lack of actual engagement for contemporary art.

the necessity of an art hall cannot be determined by an exhibition. the necessity and feasibility must be determined in an open exchange with all involved – artists, curators, art associations, galleries and museums…, and in a public discussion process.

if the acquisition budget for contemporary art is cancelled from the berlin gallery, if the artworks KW or the art associations NBK and NGBK are facing substantial financial bottlenecks, if there is not a single berlin support programme for “off-spaces” and self-organised exhibition spaces… how is a new kunsthalle supposed to function?

we don’t let ourselves be instrumentalized!
we want to see berlin politics that can be taken seriously, that focuses on improving the living conditions of the socially disadvantaged. many berlin artists have been experiencing the exact opposite for years: our living and production conditions are becoming more difficult, rents and the cost of living are rising, subsidies are being cut, income is declining. with katharina sieverding, we say: “poor but sexy” is out. it ruins and discriminates against us and our art.

franziska böhmer
thomas kilpper
www.after-the-butcher.de

atb #30 | M85 – Fragments of a Cluster Bomb

Lukas Einsele

Opening Friday, May 13 from 7pm

Exhibition: May 14  through  June 10,
open only by appointment
+49 – 157 – 783 304 98

M85 are ground-launched bomblets, which can be dispensed from a variety of cluster munitions, including artillery cargo projectiles, mortars and rockets. The two functions of M85 are: to penetrate armour and to create fragmentation for an anti-personnel/anti-materiel effect. M85 are small and of cylindrical shape. M85 are the only bomblet containing a self destruct (SD) mechanism that have been used in combat; in 2003 by the United Kingdom in Iraq, and in 2006 by Israel in Lebanon, 2009 by Georgia against Russland, and presumably in 2011 by Thailand against Cambodia. 
The exhibition »M85 – Fragments of a Cluster Bomb« tries to  reconstruct the trajectory of M85: from a spot where they exploded (or not) back to their origins. Dead or wounded civilians, farmers, paramedics, surgeons, deminers, soldiers, politicians, dealers,  factory workers, engineers… Who are the individuals behind, besides, and in front of M85, and what is their relation to the weapon and to each other?

atb #27 | Fuzzy Sets

Ausstellung der Klasse Amelie von Wulffen, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien

Opening: June, 25, 2010 at 19.00
Performance: Myriam Khouri, 20.30
Music: fuzzy tents

Exhibition: June, 26, 2010 – August, 28, 2010
open by appointment +49 (0)179 947 30 40

Janina Arendt, Kamilla Bischof, Michal Blaszczyk, Thao Le Dinh, Nicolas Dupont, Mohammad Fard, Elisabeth Greinecker, Anastasia Grichina, Andreas Harrer, Myriam Khouri, Florian Pfaffenberger,
Ayumi Rahn, Sophie Reinhold, Immanuel Rohringer, Leonie Schwitalla, Lucia Stamati, Philipp Timischl, Julian Turner, Dario Wokurka, Anastasiya Yarovenko, Matthias Widder, Marcin Zarzeka

atb #23 | Hüttendong

Tammo Rist, Amilcar Packer, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, s.a.b., Hanayo, Carola Spadoni, Gregor Gleiwitz, Neda Nanai, Tenko Nakajima, Jakob Schaible, Judy Ross, Heike Föll, Mario Caroli, Aids-3D, Steev Lemercier, Johannes Kullen, Thomas Kilpper, Baltazar Castor, Trygve Luktvasslimo, Clarissa Cody, Nina Hoffmann, Lydia Hamann, Timo Klöppel, Philip Wiegard, Marcus Randolf, Piotr Wolf, Voin de Voin, Nathan Peter, Dennis Kuhlow, Gerry Bibby, Gavin Russom, Clare O’Connor, Sophie-Therese Trenka-Dalton, Anders Clausen, Chelsa Cup, Thomas Noesler, Kandis Willians, Tom Witschonke, Endre Aalrust, Kathrin Sonntag, Felix Meyer, Johannes Raether, Robert Burghardt, Christophe Hamaide Person, Sarah Schoenfeld, Delia Gonzalez, Anton Stoianov, Benjamin Alexander Huseby, Adrian Hermanides, Jan Hammer, Denise Palma Ferrante, Brent Wadden, Yusi Etiman, Mariechen Danz, David Keating, Rein Vollenga, Yorgos Sapountzis,
are all coming to Jan Molzberger’s and Eli Sudbrack’s hut.

Photo by Mario Carloi

HÜTTENDONG

Opening: 13th November 2009 at 7pm
Exhibition: 14th November 2009 – 3rd January 2010
open by appointment +49 (0)179 947 30 40

endreaalrust.com
philipwiegard.com