?Art ? movement- directness ? humour ? amazement ? participation!...? the Georg ? Kolbe Museum in Berlin discovers with its summer exhibition the emotional and aesthetic dimensions of contemporary art machines. Until 6. September it assembles nine contemporary positions in form of a snapshot, whose work challenges our physical as well as our psychological approach to engineering.
The romantic aspect in this relation describes the dominating tendency to emotional intimacy, to magical, pretty, baffling, abysmal and absurd. These seemingly impressed kinetic objects aim for our often broken relationship to the world of machinery and technology in which we have accommodated. Our life is dominated by dependency to machines and vending machines, whose technical core is domesticated generally. The kinetic artworks deconstruct this façade und gives these things a sinister life of its own. The artists of this exhibition broach the issue of this life of its own in a profound, ironic and self reflexive way, which is embossed by the fascination for the direct and amazing effect of moving machines.
Joining for this exhibition are the Lithuanian Zilvinas Kempinas as well as the Nordic duo Elmgreen & Dragset, who also take part in this years Venice biennale, and the young shooting star Michael Sailstorfer from Munich who has been dedicated his own exhibition in the Schirn in Frankfurt.
The round tour through this exhibition is opened by Peter Fischli/David Weiß video ?Der Lauf der Dinge?, which has been shown first in 1987 at the documenta 8. For many artists in this exhibition this video shows important benchmarks for their work in a way of hidden humour and serious playfulness. This also works for the slapstick irony of Berlin based artist Robert Barta. Also participating are Johanna Smiatek who give a prospective of the female approach to this topic, the Israelian newcomer Ariel Schlesinger and the Vienna based technical artist Thomas Baumann who build a wave machine in Basel last year, as well as the Leipzig based Julius Popp, whose artistique-scientific work has been receiving general attention for many years now. As we already mentioned Popp will receive the Art price of the Adolf-Luther-Stiftung in 2010.
Participating Artists:
Robert Barta (*1975 in Prag)
Thomas Baumann (*1967 in Wien)
Michael Elmgreen (*1961 in Kopenhagen) und Ingar Dragset (*1969 in Trondheim)
Peter Fischli (*1952 in Zürich) und David Weiss (*1946 in Zürich)
Zilvinas Kempinas (*1969 in Litauen)
Julius Popp (*1975 in Nürnberg)
Michael Sailstorfer (*1979 in München)
Ariel Schlesinger (*1980 in Israel)
Johanna Smiatek (*1967 in Hannover)
Curator: Dr. Marc Wellmann, Ausstellungsleiter des Georg-Kolbe-Museums. An interview of the exhibition you can see here.
http://www.art-in-berlin.de/incbmeld.php?id=1700
Duration: 28. Juni ? 6. September 2009
Further Information: http://www.georg-kolbe-museum.de
