Chantal Akerman
Ruth Buchanan
Liudvikas Buklys
Saim Demircan
Sara Deraedt
fabrics interseason
Wally Salner
Johannes Schweiger
Lasse Schmidt Hansen
Benjamin Hirte
Marie Lund
David Maljkovic
Michaela Meise
Nicole Wermers
Heimo Zobernig
Soren Grammel
A wavy line is drawn across the middle of the original plans. The exhibition is interested in the link between the built environment and the ideas and programs formulated through it. Every product of formal design embodies the utopia of a space, in which it can appear in an ideal way.
curated by Søren Grammel
Artists:
Chantal Akerman, Ruth Buchanan, Liudvikas Buklys, Saim Demircan, Sara Deraedt, _fabrics interseason (Wally Salner, Johannes Schweiger), Lasse Schmidt Hansen, Benjamin Hirte, Marie Lund, David Maljkovic, Michaela Meise, Nicole Wermers, Heimo Zobernig.
The works in the exhibition are made primarily of simple building materials. They reflect everyday use. Their view of the world is without transcendence. They contrast the sublimity of minimalism with their pure physicality. Their source is the building kit, of which normality is constructed. At the level of reference, some of the works refer to semi-public or private spaces, as they provide contexts oriented to meaning for the construction of identity. The shifts that distinguish the works from their functional models can be minimal and yet convey skepticism. If the policeman says, “Stop, don’t move!”, the exhibition wonders what a carpet placed in a building has to say. What did the architect want? How was the life of the users imagined?
The exhibition is interested in the link between the built environment and the ideas and programs formulated through it. Every product of formal design embodies the utopia of a space, in which it can appear in an ideal way. This abstractly planned space is always a political space at the same time, which defines certain orders and identities. This perspective also draws the gaze to the aspect of authority in both artistic and architectural productions, which became visible in the 20th century as the ambivalence of Modernism between emancipation and control, between empowerment and rationalization.
(The exhibition title is a sentence borrowed from the text "Open Display For Particular Viewership" by Ruth Buchanan)
Image: Benjamin Hirte, Hocker
Opening April 18th
Kolnischer Kunstverein
Hahnenstrasse 6 -Koln