Greif & Hennig
dal 13/3/2008 al 18/4/2008
Segnalato da
13/3/2008
Greif & Hennig
Galerie Jette Rudolph, Berlin
A good cast is worth repeating. The Leipzig artistduo conceptualized a multi-part installation visualizing their masterplan for the constructors of barricades, even for those hoodlums who fail on the state.
The spectacle is not a whole of images, rather than a social relation
between persons mediated through images. To be recognized by its
totality, the spectacle is at the same time the result and the ambition of
the existing method of production.
(free translation: Guy Debord, Gesellschaft des Spektakels, Tiamat Berlin,
1996)
The present is a paradox and history is written by models of repetitions.
Destruction and recreation, appropriation and occupation or the abolishing
of the past, all of these lay at close quarters.. The new grows out of the
dense mist of the past but at the same time it functions as a mirror
reflecting its own history. Besides to this join the requirements to the
individual in the social context in terms of mass media, mania of
knowledge and flexibility. Being flexible ad nauseam!- Who is not able to
match this, breaks down- or breaks out to revolt.
The Leipzig artistduo Greif & Hennig (b. in 1976 and 1978) conceptualized
a multi-part installation visualizing the artists' masterplan for the
constructors of barricades, even for those hoodlums who fail on the state.
The barricades are prototypes printed on millimetre paper after being
rendered on the computer based on disposable materials in urban space like
shopping carts, police barriers and euro-pallets. Aside a computer monitor
presents a web project referring to media archives listing a choice of
historical and recent riots.
The guideline of the concept of the show is a former work of the artist
duo based on a chain of campaigns entitled "Theory and Practice" which
refers to the strategies of Appropriation Art. Greif & Hennig converted
tabletops into demonstration boards to stage in a selfreflecting way the
ideal and the failure of the artist’s image between idea and its
realization. Sometimes former intentions never worked out or have been
forgotton why Greif & Hennig take their chance to approach anew. So they
re-construct the table as the source of their boards to claim: da capo!
Because the act of failure not only accommodates the possibility of
repetition and over-working, but also the possibility of knowledge.
The title of the show "A Good Cast Is Worth Repeating" citates the
wellknown spoke of cinematic final credits dealing with the principle of
repetition as a task of of job- creation measure as well as with the logo
of the media group giant UNIVERSAL as an example for capitalistic
monopolization of markets for creative products. In the context of this
sytem the artist is able to participate as an universal construct (cp.
Timm Ullrich´s Totalknstler).
The main exhibition room got misappropriated by the neon Universal- logo
whose original right side is transformed into a European instead of the
American outline. By this reverse of the familiar topographic reference
points the artist duo Greif & Hennig asks the recipient to rethink spatial
and temporal constants of pretended requirements as well as
generelizations of cultural values. Nevertheless the discrepance
concerning the role and function of the United States is shown in the form
of a star- splanged banner which immovably got fixed on the wall. Neither
pulling nor drafting helps because its claim is universal in "theory and
practise".
Opening march 14 2008
Galerie Jette Rudolph
Zimmerstrasse 90-91 - Berlin
Free admission