13 Sep 2011

Marcel Dzama and Claudia Kapp at Kunstverein Braunschweig

MARCEL DZAMA
THE NEVER KNOWN INTO THE FORGOTTEN
September 17 - November 13, 2011
Opening on September 16, 7 pm

The New York-based artist Marcel Dzama (*1974 in Winnipeg, Canada) has achieved international prominence with his subtly colored fantastic figurations in ink and watercolor. He is currently one of the most important artists of his generation working figuratively.

At first glance, his delicate works strike one as being almost innocent, yet a grotesque and occasionally gruesome universe opens up behind this façade: the protagonists in his charmingly but horrifically choreographed pictorial world, which appears to be devoted to the abysmal depths of humanity, are wearing masks, uniforms, bearing arms, dancing, making love, or in agony. Dzama's imagery extends longitudinally into three-dimensional space. His dioramas – stage-like showcases – are populated by bizarre, hybrid beings from mythology, history, and legend. In addition, display cases, much like those in a museum setting, house different chalk-white masks, helmets, and heads. Films complement his repertoire – the costumes and scenery are meticulously planned.

Dzama's most recent film, A Game of Chess, is being shown in the hall of Villa Salve Hospes. The classic protagonists also make an appearance: constantly recurring archetypes who appear to carry a hidden symbolism within them. They absorb a wide spectrum of influences from older and more recent art history: Francisco de Goya, Dada, in particular Marcel Duchamp as well as Oskar Schlemmer's Triadic Ballet. The pictorial aesthetics of the 1920s is typical of Dzama's oeuvre, diversely augmented by references to literature, psychology, cinematic history, and current political issues.

The theme of war and terrorist stereotypes are always conspicuously prominent: in Dzama's film The Infidels, which is also being shown at the Kunstverein, they are wearing uniforms, holding a Kalashnikov, hiding their faces behind hoods or balaclavas, and lining up in droves for battle, ultimately congregating to perform a kind of ghost parade. War is not mystified in the apocalyptic scenarios, but is accepted as a universally valid historical phenomenon and presented as a phantasmagorical outcome in an alarming myriad of forms.


Remise
CLAUDIA KAPP
In Collaboration with BENJAMIN BLANKE and ANNA JANDT
YOU YOU
September 17 - November 13, 2011
Opening on September 16, 7 pm

On the occasion of the New York grant awarded by the Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung and the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture, the Kunstverein Braunschweig is presenting Claudia Kapp, the grant's 2010 recipient.

The glowing flourescent letters on the roof of the Remise beckon the viewer, seem to address him or her directly: YOU YOU. Yet the façade's windows and doors have been sealed with wooden boards, and the familiar entrance into the interior is blocked. An image is created that is both inviting as well as hermetic. One eventually accesses the building by way of the garden. Spaces that are otherwise not accessible are opened, and the Remise becomes a poetically enraptured and complex, overall work of art.