26 Jun 2009

fake or feint: Scenario 6

The final scenario of the fake or feint exhibition series deals with issues of visibility and identity, media strategies and the public space. It comprises a sound piece by the group e-Xplo in collaboration with Jaime Lutzo, an installative image-assemblage by Tom Holert, a monitor installation by Daniel Knorr as well as a double channel video installation by Eske Schlüters and Axel Gaertner.

The group e-Xplo (Erin McGonigle, Rene Gabri, Heimo Lattner) and Jaime Lutzo present their new piece „Einmal ist Keinmal' (‚once doesn't count'). Its starting point is the immediate surroundings of the exhibition spaces, the ‚Berlin Carré' at Alexanderplatz. Besides the somewhat atypical and unfunctional character of this shopping mall, as well as its role as a gathering place for certain groups such as the emo-kids, it appears as a location where social interaction is defined by acts of buying and selling. Their most intimate form probably the payment by credit card – bearing the owners proper name. Within this environment, e-Xplo's work creates the possibility for an exchange of experiences. They proceed from Walter Benjamin's short essay ‚The Storyteller', which itself is an outstanding example for the recounting and retelling of stories. From this essay they take the focus on the two essential figures in the act of storytelling: The storyteller is a communicator of experiences. The listener extends the life of the story by recalling it, by interpreting it, but also by adding to it, making it a part of their own experience. For their work, e-Xplo have developed two scenarios, in which the performers Robin Arthur and Angelika Sautter take these two roles and reflect on these within the course of telling two stories. Pressed as a record, they can be listened to from a loudspeaker as part of an installative setting in the exhibition space.

Daniel Knorr's new work „Index' deals with Berlin's cultural landscape and cultural politics and the role of exhibition spaces within. As one of the presently most prominent locations for contemporary art, the city possesses a cultural identity, which is influenced from many sides and manufactured by many agents. For his work, exhibition venues in Berlin and the works of art displayed there are photographed and combined into a monitor presentation. Thereby a „historical' position of June 2009 accrues, a snapshot of the different threads of cultural production, making it possible to project them into the future in view of upcoming developments in cultural politics. The initial concept of Knorr's work, for which fake or feint made a new space accessible in the Berlin Carré, is the practice of self-contextualisation. A so-called Off-Space is always concerned with its own contextualisation, just as an artist is with contextualising him- or herself in relation to art history. The presentation of „Index' enables the artist, the work and the space (fake or feint) to materialise their position within 'past, present and future' forms of art history, just by showing what´s outside their artistic practice.

Eske Schlüters' and Axel Gaertner's two-channel video-installation „Límite Meanwhile' refers to strategies of masquerade in the realm of political expression and action. Since the 90s the ‚pasamontaña' (balaclava mask) has become prominent through its use by the Mexican Zapatista and especially their spokesman Subcomandante Marcos. Initially used for protecting its wearer from being identified by state authorities, it has equally evolved into the sign of a supra-individual group identity and a much-cited media icon. Besides media images from the Zapatista context, the work retraces the mask in feature films by Costa Gavras and Techiné as well as own material. A re-iterated yet always varying image sequence is accompanied by a soundtrack that refers to issues of identity, masquerade and political action. Montage of film and soundtrack follow the concept of free indirect speech, recombining visual and discursive meanings irrespective of their documentary or fictional origin. This approach achieves the effect of the author's or speaker's position not being occupied straightforwardly, but equally blurred and multiplied – resuming the theme of masquerade on a structural level. Thus a suggestive narrative evolves, its reception oscillating between grasping an immediate literal or visual meaning and the guessing of an historic or fictional context and reference.

Titled „Carrying Pictures' the art historian and cultural critic Tom Holert presents an installation of extracts from his image archive. The carrying of pictures has its origins in the context of religious processions. More modern examples are portraits of politicians and photographs of missing or killed relatives. The mobile display of such images for instance at a demonstration has become a widespread means of expressing political views or allegations. The particular expressiveness of such scenes derives from the meaningful exchange which is engendered between the authority of the images and the authenticity and ‚aliveness' of their carriers. Thus, with an eye toward international media coverage, the latter may reckon to be themselves an interesting subject for present photographers and cameramen. The installative assembly of exemplary media images aims to disclose the particular materiality and affectivity of the public display of images by human carriers. It participates in the debate on visual atlases and other argumenting image-assemblages and raises the question about the relation between such practices and the possibilities of their display in the context of an art project like fake or feint.

Talks:

2 July, 8 pm
Johannes-Georg Schülein: 'Im Erscheinen Verschwinden. Über Differenz und Gesten der Subversion aus philosophischer Sicht'

9 July, 8 pm
Markus Rautzenberg talks about Philosophy of Disturbance

16 July , 8 pm
Annette Maechtel: 'Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 9-11 – Eine archäologische Annäherung an Architektur', Videolecture

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) and Bettina Wenzel (curatorial assistance).

fake or feint is funded by the Hauptstadtkulturfonds. Furthermore the realization of the project is due to the support of cine-plus, BB Bank from funds of the Gewinnsparverein Baden e.V., Pilsener Urquell, Österreichischen Kulturforum Berlin and the Kulturbehörde Hamburg.
Media partner of fake or feint is the tageszeitung (taz).