Texts about expos

Time

 

Text I wrote for the Lotto BrandenBurg Fotografie Preis 2022 

The theme that unites all my works is time. I use my own digital photos to create images that are usually part of larger artworks. What you see here [link to the images I send in for the price] are just the prints, made the way I am now doing more and more: transfer printing on painted surfaces and then disguise them as artifacts weathered by time. For me the printing process I use now with digital images, is as important as creating a print from a negative like I used to do in a darkroom.

The works I create that way are fake, they are forgeries of artworks that have never existed. Or maybe they will, one day, in the future. Before I die, I want to put a lot of artworks in watertight containers and bury them in the earth or hide them in the mountains. And they will be accompanied by fake documents written by non-existent experts who write about their history and the artists that created them. It could be a collection like the ones I present here. I am in the testing phase for a larger project.

Why should I want to make artworks about time? As an artist I see myself as part of a development that started thousands of years ago. The oldest figurative art found in caves is about 35 thousand years old, the oldest decorative art is over 15 thousand years old, and the oldest known landscape painting is about 3500 years old. Development in art is done by learning and copying from one another. And by retelling the same story over and over again, making it stronger every time it is retold.

But this development is also human development, because art and being human are somehow connected. In that light I want people to think about time, and especially about time frames that are longer than the lives of one individual, or a number of generations that one individual can grasp right now.

Somehow different times need different stories. In this era, maybe starting with futurism or with romanticism even, we tend to think of art as something unique and the artist as the individual genius who created that unique piece of work – and all those works should point towards a future where everything is better than today and everything is brand new and never seen before. ‘Make room, make room’, says the futurist manifesto and warns those that are in their way to step aside, or else…

This is of course connected with the western world in general where we think science will save us all no matter what happens and our flourishing economy will make us better people, living in eternal peace and unity. But Trump/Qanon, our inaction towards global warming, resistance to Covid measures, the current war and the narratives surrounding it, have proven that we are not as in control of our destiny as we would like. What it has also shown us, is that people are not convinced by facts.

I would love to make strong political art about this – but I am convinced this would not work. The only thing I can do as an artist, is ask questions, try to make people aware of this longer timeline, where art and being human is not this individualistic endeavor.

And it all starts with the question: ‘How old is this artwork really and who created it?’ And is followed by the answer that it is not clear and there is no way of knowing that.

EXPO 24-26.06 2022 / #48hneukoelln #48hnk2022

Hungerwinter/Romantique – Walking through a forest during a pandemic

Expo as part of the Main theme ‘Kafayı yemek / Ich esse meinen Kopf’ during 48H Neuköln 2022 – 24.06-26.06 @CBS-Weinkunstscheune from 24.6 until 26.6.2022

Almost every week during these Covid years, I have made a long hike through Berlin and Brandenburg – and every time I brought a camera.

During my walks I not only cleared my head so I could stop myself from eating my head off – but I also tried to step away from all the head-eating as a result of our changed reality as became clear in the past decade: we are not in control of nature – not the nature around us and not our human nature – and we never have been.

Even before Covid I was regularly pondering about two facts that were burned in my head:

  1. In Europe we used to have at least 10 large famines every century. And Famines and disease often go hand in hand.
  2. Part of the battlefield of WWI is still not accessible to humans or fit to be used as farmland over a 100 years later.

In the western world we want to forget that. We think science will save us and our flourishing economy will make us better people, living in eternal peace and unity. But Trump, global warming and Covid (EDIT: and now the current war, the looming food crisis) have proven that we are not as in control of our destiny as we would like.

For me this was a reason to try and find inspiration in the art of times when we saw nature for what it really is: on the one side it gives us life, on the other it is our mortal enemy. The strange thing is that in the paintings of the past, nature is seen as a place of beauty and a world filled with power. That is what I focused on.

During 48 Hours NK, I want to show a series of large black and white photos printed on surfaces painted with silver or gold. I want to present that as a panorama built from multiple prints in ornamental frames (A0 or larger) on 3 or 2 walls, maybe also photos on floor/ceiling depending on the space. This should not only show nature, but also should be seen as a moment of contemplation of our role in that nature. Because without it we are going to blow our top off (platzt den Hutrand) or people start bashing each other’s heads in – or we have to bow our heads and accept our fate.

PERMEABLE PLACE–FAIR TRANSITIONS – pop-up exhibition East Side Gallery Berlin August 12-15 2021

    • Foto: Regina Kelaita

    I made an installation as part of an exhibition commemorating it was 60 years since the day East German authorities started building the Berlin Wall.

    As a reaction to the open call by Art Up, Fair Kiez and  the East Side Gallery, my installation was Commemoration table from the future – with a story.

    Here is my project proposal: English – Deutsch. Here is the text written in the year 2289 as it was published on the installation: English – Deutsch

    Materials: Old wood, metal, rusty screws and other metal parts, fiber composite material for ornaments and relic shrines, various prints in Photolux Professional Matte 230, board, paint, black and white prints, alubond, suitcase, jerrycans, dried flowers, LED lamps, magnifying glasses, silicone
    Dimensions: 200x250x90cm

    What I made for the Kleistpark Berlin Art Price 2017 (sadly I was not selected)

    • The frame as I presented it as a design

    This is the work I send to the Gallery Kleistpark Berlin to apply the art price of 2017 around the theme of the ‘Capriccio.’ To them this has to do with going against the art rules in a playful way. This is seen as the forerunner for the modern art. In wikipedia it is called ‘an architectural fantasy, placing together buildings, archaeological ruins and other architectural elements in fictional and often fantastical combinations.’

    I applied since I think I could fit into both definitions.

    The text I send to them was more or less the one in my ‘About my work‘ text – and I added the following:

    ”The main grammar that I use in the work I present here, is that of the ornament, and the goal is to make people question what is inside the fleshy, semi-erotic, alien – perhaps grotesque – ornamental centerpiece. What should be the meaning of this in an era where so many people wonder about sexualitiy, gender; what is the meaning of this in this time where we marvel about the knowledge and ability to perform sex-changes and at the same time we ponder about the existence of Alien Life.

    Maybe trans-sexualism – and also trans-humanism – should be the next step in our development before we even are able to be confronted with the unimaginable coming from other planets. But on the other hand, who says the unimaginable has to come from outer space? It does not matter if it is true alien life or simply the next step in our own evolution. Or maybe the person standing next to us in the subway. Maybe we’ll find out at some point.”

    Standing outside looking in

    Thoughts about ‘Road to Europe’and the adaptations for Road to Europe

    The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed
    — William Gibson

    Europeans have a birth-right to reside inside of what is more and more becoming the gated community called the EU. That right gives them the opportunity to participate in and benefit from Europe’s blissful future. In my work I am looking for the viewpoints of those who do not wish to be part of this utopian world, those who are willing to work on an alternative future or those who can not be part of that privilege for whatever reason – and I have positioned them against the borders or inside the no-mans lands that seem to define them. Will they be honored as martyrs in future-Europe, just like the early monks who gained sainthood because of their apocalyptic visions, the hardships they endured and the good deeds they performed?

    Read more …

    Expo 2012

    Expo – Opening 15th of October 2012 -19:00 hours

    I have an exhibition starting on monday the 15th of October until monday 21st of October in a bar called ‘The Great Heisenberg’ in Neuölln, Berlin – opening starts at 19:00. I will show mostly new works and one of them will be donated to the Kreutzigerstrasse during an event at a later time. Music by the PrunX acoustic + suprise guests session :-)

    I’m not a photographer per-se, but I do take photos all the time and use the resulting material and a bunch of digital tools to create art that is inspired by classical topics and themes. One of the works I will show is the last in a series of modern icons I have been working on for almost 10 years. It is the picture of an ex-junky who has since died after a robbery. I can still find him in my list of facebook friends. Every year on the day he died people will tell him they miss him. If we also post our prayers on his wall, will he talk to god so he favors our wishes? In our modern society we no longer honor our outcasts as the saints they used to be in earlier times, as described in anthropological works like ‘The Golden Bough’ by sir J.G. Frazer. What used to live in churches /temples is now experienced while dancing to a thumping beat. Too bad being an outcast is just a live-style that is at its best an inspiration for our latest fashion choices. The other works I will show are also inspired by something classical: I’m trying to rediscover ornamental themes as used in wallpaper, murals and in books until not that long ago.

    Opening hours are from 20.00 hours until way after midnight. The expo is part of a series of exhibitions from [MfG Berlin – Movement for Galleries]