19 Feb 2009

fake or feint: Scenario 2

The second scenario of fake or feint exhibition project presents two space- and video installations by the artists Kaucyila Brooke and Sofie Thorsen / Katharina Lampert. The opening is on February 21st from 7 to 9 p.m.

In her five-channel-video installation Alma Mater, Kaucyila Brooke focuses on the Arkadenhof (central courtyard) of the Vienna University. With its 154 busts of prominent and exclusively male scientists of the last 300 years, it is a striking example of male dominated bourgeois representational architecture. The work is based on footage from 2006, when the Arkadenhof was undergoing renovation. The videos trace and negotiate representational politics from different perspectives, questioning the relationships of knowledge and authority that are put in relief with each other in this ensemble. Two channels show women artists and scholars, appropriating these hallowed halls for their gatherings. The continual and restless movement of the camera documents the architecture and every single head, exposing and visually exploring a text of mastery and authority. In a paired video, the women protagonists echo the pedagogical forms of the ancient Greek philosophical school of Peripatos (which literally means `walking about´) by walking the colonnades and openly discussing the changing status of women in the structures of education. Another video employs the imagery of the building's reconstruction to sift through the material constituents of the institution's historically developed identity. Workers pile up stones and load a moving belt that removes rubble from the inside courtyard to the outside street. Pedestrians walk by the street facade of the University building littered with signs of its dismemberment. The installation of video projections and monitors is combined with hand drawn chalk inscriptions on floor and walls, in which Brooke diagrams, labels and comments on the architecture's pedagogical structures.

A second installation combines wall drawings by Sofie Thorsen and two films produced in co-operation with Katharina Lampert.

The film Wenn wir da sind ('When we are there', ca. 16 min) shows teenagers in a small industrial town of the Steiermark (Austria). Before the backdrop of mountain and small town scenery, in an atmosphere of extensive summery sweet idleness, the protagonists are spending their time skating, swimming and hanging out together. The places occupied by the teenagers through their sheer presence, time and again show an urban air, yet the mountainscape remains very present. As well in clothing and gestures of the protagonists elements of urban subcultures such as graffiti, skating and punk appear. The teenagers seem to remain mostly unaffected by the camera's presence, yet in several moments they are directly reacting to it. It is apparent that they let themselves be filmed the way they are, yet at the same time play themselves for the camera.

The film Die Schlacht ('The Battle', 2:30 min) shows another group of children and adolescents from a small town in Upper Austria. As part of a research conducted in 2005 the children were asked about their own places and the stories connected to them. Unsolicited a group of boys decided to re-enact the fight over a self-built hut in the forest, that took place the year before. The re-enactment starts slowly, yet at some point switches to an aggressiveness that is no longer mere play.

The wall drawings refer to the places that the children and adolescents occupy as their stages. They are composed of elements from the town and countryside sceneries that are the setting for the films. In drawings reduced to black and white the locations become abstract and exchangeable.


fake or feint is a seven-month exhibition project taking place at Berlin Carré at Alexanderplatz, Berlin. Five consecutive exhibition scenarios and a film scenario at Kino Arsenal at Potsdamer Platz deal with the politics of the surface and acts of marking as an intervention. Internationally renowned artists show works ranging from photography, video- and space installation to site-specific intervention. A ‚second section' designed by artist Katrin Mayer hosts a process-related archive with selected material. A series of events accompanies the exhibitions with seminars, lectures, performances and artist talks. fake or feint is funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.

Upcoming scenarios:

Scenario 3 (March 9th, 16th and 23rd, 2009)
A film program curated by Elena Zanichelli and Joerg Franzbecker, taking place at Kino Arsenal at Potsdamer Platz.

Scenario 4 (April 4th to May 2nd, 2009)
Amy Granat, Annja Krautgasser, Katrin Mayer

Scenario 5 (May 16th to June 13th, 2009)
Daniela Comani, Keren Cytter, Heiko Karn

Scenario 6 (June 27th to July 25th, 2009)
e-Xplo, Daniel Knorr, Eske Schlüters / Axel Gaertner

Series of lectures and performances with contributions by:

Martin Beck / Johannes Schülein, Elena Esposito, Tom Holert, Jan Kedves, Hanne Loreck, Annette Maechtel, Performerstammtisch, Markus Rautzenberg, Tim Stüttgen and Michael Zinganel.

Team:

Joerg Franzbecker with Martin Beck (curators), Adrian Bremenkamp (catalogue and archive), Bärbel Hartje (consultant), Katrin Mayer (exhibition design), Flo Gaertner (graphic design), Elena Zanichelli (film program).