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17/9/2004

Hidden (hi)stories

Galerie K&S, Berlin

Opening Reception: Saturday, September 18, 2004, 6pm
The performance "STEP" by Peter Callesen starts at 6 pm.

The central focus of the group exhibition Hidden (hi)stories, is the artistic confrontation with (hi)stories and their investigative, narrative documentary and fictive aspects. Contrary to the ever-increasing trivialization and spectacularization of (hi)stories, especially via the mass media, Maja Bajevic, Lene Berg, Yane Calovski, Peter Ravn Callesen, Andrea Melloni and Florian Wüst investigate various areas of writing history and stories in their objects, photographs, performances, video works and installations. Maja Bajevic (*1967, Bosnia-Herzigovina, lives in Paris) addresses particularly the more recent history of her country and the political and social realities connected to it.

In her work Back in Black (2003), a two-channel video project exhibited at K&S, masked women and men ­ sitting in a café made to appear nostalgic ­ recite cynical jokes told during the after wartime in Sarajevo. Florian Wüst (*1970, Germany) researches the often unstable and incongruent relationship between state and individual in the context of western postwar and current history. Here, such issues as democracy and freedom, belief in progress and ethics play a central role. In his radio play Ein Abgrund von Landesverrat (Studien zum politischen Subjekt 2#) (In the Depths of National Treason (Studies on a Political Subject #2)) (2004) and accompanying room drawings seen for the first time in Hidden (hi)stories, he deals with the SPIEGEL scandal, taking the role of then-Federal Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauß into special consideration. The films and installations of current Solitude fellow Lene Berg (*1965, Norway, lives in Stockholm) find their point of departure in contradictory or ambivalent events in another way. The essential characteristic of her investigative art is the question of the images and language in which history is written.

In Berlin, she continues her multimedia work A Body is Found...., which deals with the mysterious death (declared a suicide) of the internationally-known Swedish match manufacturer Ivar Krueger in 1930s Paris as well as the socio-political circumstances of March 1932. In the current Berlin version of the work, the artist concentrates on Krueger¹s local holdings and the regional daily press of the time. Andrea Melloni (*1975, Italy) dedicates his research to work methods in the natural sciences. With the Cubide ammelare, a structure for which he creates replicating subdivisions, the artist addresses the issues of progressive gene research and reproductive medicine. Using his own body¹s secretions, which he initially subjects to microscopic and computer-simulation processes, Melloni creates a virus that, here, spreads within an artistic framework. By appropriating natural-scientific methods, he places these in a critical context. Yane Calovski¹s (*1973, Macedonia, lives in Maastricht) primarily topographical interventions are also based upon a systematic adaptation and expansion of existing structures. His work Tommy Rot (2002) was created during a long residence in the city of Bozen and takes place in the early 60s. At the time, Southern Tyrolean irredentists perpetrated attacks to gain regional independence from Italy. In cooperation with an actress and the local press, Calovski produced performative actions that reflect the regional history of the location and its surroundings. In contrast, Peter Callesen¹s (*1967, Denmark) confrontations with (hi)stories take place in a largely romantic way. In many cases, fairy tales are a model for his performances and drawings. Recurring characterizations are the ugly duckling and the beautiful swan, which serve the artist as metaphors for questions of identity.
In his performance Step, he presents himself in a duck costume with oversize feet and positions himself in the space in such a way that a confrontation with the exhibition visitor is unavoidableÅ 

curator: Miriam Bers
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalog.

A project by Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart and Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin.
With the friendly support of Allianz Kulturstiftung.

Galerie K&S
Linienstraße 156/157
10115 Berlin

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