Dealing with the reappropriation of public spaces, this time through a focus on the margins and on the simplest actions, is the work of Nina Könnemann. Haus am Waldsee is presenting her work through two exhibitions on different floors, titled BLOCKEN and Lithic Reductions. With BLOCKEN the focus of her camera is the periphery of big events, like festivals, marathons and public gatherings, concentrating on the small traces that people leave behind them. This liminal aspect, that is made out of details, random conversations, glimpses of expressions, makes us realize the construction of reality that technology suggests as “natural”, questioning the actual truth and immediacy of what is being shown to us.
With her second exhibition, Könnemann also questions the use of technology as a means to overcome the limits set by space and time. She uses flintknapping – the practice of chipping stones to create tools – as the underlying topic. Analyzed both in ancient and contemporary times – since some people still do it as a hobby – this practice makes us question our relationship to fragility and it reconnects to the work of Rosefeldt, showing us the constant cycle of creation and destruction that humanity always seems to be drawn to.
Könnemann's work revolves around archival practice and so does the work of Senegalese artist Ken Aïcha Sy, who is presenting her project Survival Kit at ifa Galerie Berlin until August 24. Her work focuses on the concept of a living archive, that in this case is connected to her own country, Senegal, and to the painting scene that developed there between the 1960s and the 1990s. To do that, she draws on her personal archive, started by her parents. They were respectively a journalist and activist, and a painter and scenographer, and they were key figures in the cultural scene of that time.
The connection between personal and public comes out in the most powerful way, highlighting also the impact of colonization, which had an active role in getting the contents of this collection scattered all over the world. Ken Aïcha Sy tries to address the concept of restitution, seen as the only way to actually start with the long due process of decolonization.
“Restitution is not just about repairing a historical injustice. It is part of a wider process: that of reconciling with oneself, rebuilding a peaceful relationship with the world, and rehabilitating interrupted trajectories". – Felwine Sarr
Her work is a living record, a continuous process, an heritage in motion, and wishes for archives to become not only places for memory, but also drivers of the future.
Dealing directly with the past is the exhibition at Mehdi Chouakri, The Art of Survival/ Baby Doll Saloon by Sylvie Fleury and Angela Bulloch. The gallery – in collaboration with Galerie Esther Schipper – decided to restage the same exhibition that the two artists did together in the 1990s, projecting us in a past that doesn’t seem far at all. Both artists always tried to discard the cliches and limitations that society imposes on us, based on the idea of established genders. We see for example two sculptures, representative of the sexes, as deflated and exhausted symbols, drained of all their power and potential. This exhibition from the past projects us in a present where these questions are still being asked and getting unanswered, but it is time for them to really be taken seriously.
Sylvie Fleury's work is also being exhibited in a second location, questioning again the impact of categories and rules, but this time connecting them to the history of art. Art was impacted – as everything else was – by various cliches concerning the concepts of masculinity and femininity, conveyed by the choice of materials and themes for example. The exhibition challenges that, becoming a chance to rewrite art history and aiming at a full recognition of women in the arts – both in the past and in the present.
At the end of May, Humboldt Forum opened three new exhibitions, to highlight the collections of the Ethnologisches Museum and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, which are inside its building. Restaurierung im Dialog is dedicated to the conservation and restoration work that the museum does, giving to the public an insight on their work behind the scenes. The other two exhibitions confront the issue of time and space, giving new perspectives on often untold stories. With his exhibition Die Geschichte der Weißen (The Story of White People) Feliciano Lana discusses the impact of colonization, analyzing its consequences from the other side, the oppressed one. He uses apparently naive depictions to underline a very personal and touching view of that part of history, finally told by an indigenous person.
Takehito Koganezawa’s practice revolves around the concepts of time and space, and the perspective we have of them, by giving new interesting insights and opportunities to discuss them. His practice is embedded in a collaborative process. In his work all media are in dialogue between themselves and with the outside, giving motion to apparently static means. With Why We Build he gives movement to sculptures, taking off their usual monumentality and bringing them back to our hands. Koganezawa's exhibition Zwei auf Eins, Eins auf Zwei (One on Two, Two from One), aims at making time and space more tangible, at exploring the void and opening up new perspectives.
Galerie Molitor has recently opened a collective exhibition titled Through a Glass, Darkly, presenting the work of artists Leonora Carrington, Emanuel de Carvalho, Nika Kutateladze, Marcus Leotaud and Margaret Raspé. The exhibition reflects on time and space through a focus on perception, truth and the possible connections between different worlds.
The work of the acclaimed surrealist artist Leonora Carrington does this by engaging with myth and metamorphosis, merging together human and animal forms. The artist was always drawn to masks, which are a powerful metaphor of this liminal space, using them as intermediaries between seen and unseen worlds. Very compelling is also the work of Georgian artist Nika Kutateladze, who addresses the history of his country and the relationship between humans and animals, through intimate and unsettling portraits that resonate to the core of our hearts. In his paintings he also uses red flowers as touching symbols of the power of time and space. In his country a red flower symbolizes that a house is inhabited – since its survival in that environment requires the intensive care of someone – poetically marking the passing of time and the impact of absence and abandonment.
