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27/11/2015

Two exhibitions

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin

João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva
PAPAGAIO

Curated by Ellen Blumenstein and Vicente Todolí

The Portuguese artist duo João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva, well known for their conceptual and poetic analyses of reality, present PAPAGAIO, their largest retrospectively conceived solo exhibition in Berlin to date. The site-specific film installation brings together over twenty short 16-mm films, taken from three central work series from the past ten years.

Each film, in slow motion, silence, and looped, observes one single motif, sequence of movement, or activity. The subjects of the presented films are drawn from found as well as staged everyday, biological, physical, or chemical phenomena such as a fish’s gasp for air on dry land, or an egg frying. They are always positioned at a pressure point between perception and reality. Proceeding from a deliberately staged moment of confusion, the individual films challenge our usual perspective on a specific situation, while the installation as a whole acts to shift our view of the world.

With PAPAGAIO, Gusmão + Paiva consciously reveal their way of working; the duo depicts its fascination with the mysticism of everyday life from an analytical distance, and protocols the genesis of knowledge. In its variety, the complex artistic installation thus makes philosophical questions of existence immediately accessible. KW Institute for Contemporary Art is therefore particularly pleased to present this show to a wide Berlin audience for the first time. The exhibition was co-produced with the Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan and the Camden Arts Centre in London.

The exhibition is funded by Fürstenberg Zeitgenössisch, and the Embassy of Portugal / Camões-Instituto da Cooperação e da Língua. With special thanks to Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf.

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Michael Müller
Who's speaking?

Michael Müller's first institutional solo exhibition WHO’S SPEAKING? brings together works from recent years with specifically-developed new productions, which use various ways for investigating the question of artistic authorship.

From Müller’s perspective, “who is speaking?” also means “what is being said?” and “why?” But also “who is listening?”; The exhibited works return time and again to the issue of how an artist becomes visible in his work. Each single piece stands at a pressure point between the application or transformation of historical and contemporary artistic codes, and the artist’s personal obsessions.

For WHO’S SPEAKING? Müller has conceived new versions of two figures—Hermes and Hermaphroditos—who weave a web of references and connections between the individual works, and accompany the viewer throughout the exhibition. As the voice in a new sound installation, the protagonist of a video, or as a figurative sculpture that reverses the relationship between work and viewer, these two figures from Greek mythology appear in both expected and unexpected places, and link the content of the exhibition’s two floors formally.

The exhibition is funded by Michael Heins (Herzogenrath), Geraldine Michalke, Ángel and Clara Nieto, Stephan Oehmen, Peppermint Holding GmbH, Ernst Schering Foundation, Berlin, and Romina Polley.

The catalog is funded by NATIONAL-BANK AG.


Image: João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva, TAXIDRIVER, 2014, 16mm film, colour, no sound, 2:38 min., Courtesy the artists and Galeria Fortes Vilaça, São Paulo; Galeria Graça Brandão, Lisbon; Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf; Galleria Zero, Milan

Press contact
Henriette Sölter T +49 30243459-42 press@kw-berlin.de

Opening: Saturday, 28.11.15, 17–22 h

KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststraße 69 D-10117 Berlin
Opening hours:
Wed – Mon 12 – 19 h, Thu 12–21 h
Tuesdays closed
Admission:
6 €, reduced 4 €
Thursday evening ticket (18–21 h): 4 €
Includes guided tour at 18 h
Groups of 10 or more: 5 €, reduced 3 € p.P.

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