Formel:Kongorama #5. Thus out of this vocabulary emerge the Emblematic Sculptures, wherein she opens up semantic relations, insinuates the deferment of signs and generates symbol hybrids.
Galerie Barbara Weiss is pleased to present its third solo show with Berlin-based
artist Suse Weber (born 1970 in Leipzig). In its fifth arrangement of the Emblematic
Sculpture, she has now produced a new body of work titled FORMULA:CONGORAMA, a
series of work started in 2008.
Suse Weber adopts existing semiotic systems, modifies and transfers these into her
own formal and symbolic arrangements. Thus out of this vocabulary emerge the
Emblematic Sculptures, wherein she opens up semantic relations, insinuates the
deferment of signs and generates symbol hybrids. The formulae that result from the
combination of different orders and logic reject common ways of analysis and
question existing prerogatives of interpretation. As such, in her practice Weber
integrates little-known or almost forgotten schools of thought such as
ethno-mathematics or heraldry.
In FORMULA:CONGORAMA, visual and acoustic elements overlap into an operatic staging;
a scenario that corresponds to the different elements that have been partially
removed from its contexts:
Weber’s experience of the depiction of African people as monkeys (in the Musée Royal
d' Afrique Centrale, Tervuren), the flags and songs representative of a Flemish
radical movement (IJzerwake Meeting 2008), node language (Archive Hogere
Zeevaartschool and BDSM scene in Antwerp), folkloristic sounds of rural Belgian
musical instruments (Muziekinstrumentenmuseum archive, Brussels) as well as of
observations of industrial and culture-historic jungle sceneries in a monkey
enclosure (in the Antwerp Zoo).
The trigger for the development of this sculptural ensemble was, however, a
photograph from the archives of the Musée Royal d' Afrique Centrale, Brussels: a
table-top equipped with telephone receivers which provided information about the
former Belgian Congo to visitors of the 1958 Brussels World Fair. Opposing such
miniaturization of an entire country and its resulting limited outlook, Suse Weber
creates a new formula consisting of figurants, banners and sound modules.
The sound samples are a combination of texts by Suse Weber (Monologue
Dodekaederkopf, Instructions for a Hairdresser/Hair Analysis, partially translated
into Arabic), Ijzerwakenarzismen (original recordings of the Ijzerwake Meeting,
2008), Saxon Wolf, Belgian Sirens and compositions known as sampelbank consisting of
Religi/Drums/Folk Instruments developed in collaboration with Tim Vets (Belgian
composer).
Opening Friday, November 1, 6–9 pm
Galerie Barbara Weiss
Kohlfurter Strasse 41/43 Berlin
Gallery hours, Tue–Sa, 11 am – 6 pm