The idea for the MMX Open Art Venue project started on a flight from Berlin to New York. The day before this flight, an artist somewhere in Berlin was offered the use of a house, which he could make into a creative temporal space. But this artist already had a space. And so, the offer of a GDR-era ex-squat apartment building with a 1000 square meters of empty ground floor in one of the best commercial art gallery streets of Mitte fell on the ears of the next generation. Jonathan Gröger heard about how this building’s new owners wanted something innovative to happen within its walls during the year-long period they would need to wait for all the paperwork to come together from the city for their planned renovation. Gröger got on the NYC-bound flight with his friend Philip Eggersglüß. During the flight, the two men came to the conclusion that this was an opportunity they could not pass up.When they arrived in Brooklyn, New York, they asked artist Rebecca Loyche to join their project. Shortly after that, a fourth partner got involved, Canadian Daniel Wilson. The foursome started making plans on what to do with this empty space. They decided to create an art venue and see how much they could accomplish within twelve months’ time. In the beginning of October 2009, Jonathan, Rebecca and Philip visited Linienstraße 142 to see what they were getting into. The owner of the house, the Hausmeister, and several curious Berlin-based artists looking for studio space, came on that rainy day to stumble through the empty spaces of the building. The power was not working in any of the spaces, and this initial tour involved “breaking and entering” into several rooms on the ground floor. There was graffiti sprayed on every wall, thick black cobwebs that stuck to heads like streamers, a wall that looked like it had been used for target practice with hundreds of b-b pellets, and a big hole in one of the ceilings so that one could see through to the floor above.
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On the second floor of the building, artists seeking studios quickly staked claim to the empty rooms. But no one wanted to deal with the disaster on the ground floor. Jonathan, Philip, Rebecca and Daniel decided to take on the empty, disjointed space that had been sealed up since 1992. After examining the floor plans of the building, the breakthroughs were determined, and the idea to open everything up into a series of connecting rooms took form. The team had online weekly meetings over Skype since Daniel would remain in New York until that December. Planning out the foundation for the one-year space took shape rapidly and it was decided that the space would be called MMX—2010 in Roman numerals. The immediacy of the one-year deadline made it impossible to find the time to search for outside funding, so the four founders each invested his or her own money to get the project going. Philip oversaw most of the legal logistics in creating an e.V. with proper accreditation. Rebecca and Jonathan worked on renovating the space and planning the first shows. Never having actually seen the space, Daniel worked on the branding and design of MMX; he was updated via pictures and videotaped walkthroughs of the transforming space. Heavy-duty construction work ensued: all the electricity needed to be fixed; a plumber was hired to create working bathrooms; several walls were jack hammered; load upon load of rubble was removed; and finally, coal ovens were installed. Unfortunately, all this work took place during one of the coldest winters on record in Berlin. The space didn’t yet have glass in most of its windows. By the end of December 2009, Daniel arrived in Berlin with his brother, a contractor/carpenter from California. Friends from New York City and Spain arrived to help, along with some local volunteers.
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With the aid of a spray-paint gun and many buckets of white paint, MMX started to look like a whole new place. On New Year’s Eve 2009, the west wing of the space was opened for a “house warming party.” But due to the extreme cold that winter, the paint would not dry. Although the low key New Year’s get-together was never advertised, hundreds of people showed up, eager to see the new art space in Mitte. Everyone left the next morning at sunrise with smiles on their faces and traces of fresh white paint on their clothes and skin. A new year had arrived and, with it, so had the MMX Open Art Venue. In the next hectic twenty-eight days, the renovations were completed, the remaining windows were installed, the east side of the space was finished, the front-room bar was built, and the first show was curated. With very few resources, a lot of found materials were put to use. The bar was constructed out of leftover bricks from the knocked-down walls. The first seats for the screening room were made from shipping palettes. The film artist, Reynold Reynolds, moved into the tile room of the east wing and started creating his film set. Actors and actresses strolled into the space as the last of the rubble and debris was being carried out. The light therapy room was being planned with the help of a generous sponsor in the south of Germany, Sanalux, and special lamps from Finland made the journey to Berlin. Ingo Fröhlich took over the front reception room for a week and transformed it into an optic play of black lines.The 40+ videos that would comprise the début screening programs were making their way from Mexico the morning of the opening in the hands of co-curator, Caspar Stracke. The Ebert brothers set up for a live performance, while the rest of the artists in the opening show feverishly worked to complete their pieces.At 6:30 p.m. on opening night, there was a line forming in the front courtyard for the 7:00 o’clock official start time.
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When the doors finally opened, people descended into the space and kept streaming in all night long. When all was said and done, over 600 people had come through the space for MMX’s inaugural show on January 28, 2010. With no time to waste, Show II opened six weeks later and again, crowds flocked to the space. MMX was being talked about among the art community in Berlin, and artists were approaching the curators to present their work for consideration. Concurrently, the structure of how MMX would function was being solidified. Rebecca and Jonathan would work closely together to co-curate all the shows and assist exhibiting artists with installing, transporting, and figuring out the logistics of their exhibitions. Both felt it was important to have an open door policy in that anyone could submit work for consideration. If they felt an artist might fit into a show,
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they encouraged him or her to come and present his or her work in person, if possible. MMX Open Art Venue would be a top destination for showing emerging and underexposed artwork in Berlin. Because MMX started so quickly and was meant to be a temporary space, there was much flexibility in the curation of the shows. An artist wanting to exhibit in Berlin could show up, and if the work fit into the next exhibition, they might find themselves in the MMX mix by the end of the week. The unique dynamics of working in a space that would soon be destroyed enabled the curators to customize all the artwork. Without a lengthy trajectory of running the space or figuring out how it would survive long term, this also meant that the work was chosen solely for its merit, and not for its perceived value in the marketplace. It also became clear early on that having a screening program for every show was essential in order to present fresh and exciting international videos. The screening programs were curated through open calls posted on online art forums and by word of mouth.The moving image work would play on a loop so that spectators could come and go as they pleased. Many people brought friends back to watch a particular video, and most visitors sat for the whole 45-60 minutes, captivated by the innovative work on display. Some people were even surprised when they emerged from the gallery and an hour, or more, had passed by. March 2010: A series of interns came to help out as more publicity (and structure) came into the project. One particular intern was always there, staying late, helping out on whatever needed doing, always stepping in when Jonathan and Rebecca would get stuck in New York City, because of a volcanic eruption in Iceland, for instance. Jason Burgess joined Jonathan and Rebecca to form a third core component to curate the shows.Through online submissions, word of mouth recommendations and open calls, the MMX team still felt they were missing out on a lot of the artists in the Berlin scene.
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Weekly field trips were planned to go to local openings and shows and to do group studio visits. In researching film festivals, exhibitions and doing other “homework,” the curating team vigilantly looked for artwork that needed to be seen, realizing the importance of continuing to be an essential resource in exposing artists and their work to both Berliners and visitors from abroad in the Mitte art district. Momentum built and MMX was busy producing a full-blown exhibition every six weeks, with a steady flow of packed vernissages and finissages. Each show utilized the space’s eight rooms and the exhibits began to branch out into the courtyards and front garden. With winter’s thaw, the surrounding neighborhood started to take note of something interesting happening in the once sketchy old house on Linienstraße.
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Working with Canadian artist, Cedric Bomford, and Swedish artist, Tobias Sternberg, the front garden was transformed in the spring. Cedric built a new fence and guard booth piece for the garden, which gave the building a more “official” look, while Sternberg gave the MMX garden its magnificent icons by creating his project Schadensorge. The life-sized Wooly Mammoth sat in the branches of the enormous tree, followed by the Bison and the Black Bear displayed in hidden corners of the garden. People stopped by daily to photograph the house and its creatures. Gardeners came and planted the run down earth green. Some of the children from the school across the street came for a field trip and soon started their own vegetable patch in the front yard. More and more people came to the space. MMX became a not-to-be-missed destination in Berlin. Some were visitors just wandering down the street filled with galleries and others were people who had lived in the neighborhood a long time ago searching for a recognizable sight from the past. The history of the building is still unknown except for first hand accounts from past inhabitants coming to the space.There are stories of a horse stable in the 50s; an axe murder in the 90s; a pink drug store on the first floor forced to close by the Turkish Mafia; a “lady of the night” who lived where the entrance room of the gallery now stood; and an explosive population of toads in the cellar in the summer of 2006. Upon his inspection, the head of the Mitte police was happy to find that there was no illegal nightclub or makeshift gambling den in the space. Now, it was being used for “just art.” The space reminded many people of what Berlin used to be. Others said that they never expected to see such excellent work so professionally presented in this kind of space.
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And still others said that it was the best work they had experienced compared to what they had seen in other neighboring museums and galleries. MMX Open Art Venue was a refreshing change to have in Mitte. It had always been essential for the MMX team to create something like this in a rapidly gentrifying, commercial neighborhood. There was never any desire to be another start up or an “off the beaten path, alternative” art space.The city of Berlin itself is a creative resource, but a lot of the thriving art scene had been pushed out of the middle of the city’s center, particularly if it was not a financial contender on the international art market. The scale of the MMX project, its location, the quality of the exhibitions and its instant popularity is what made it so rare. The labyrinthine structure of the space had visitors entering and exiting through the main reception area. Everyone who entered was greeted by one of the proprietors and given a map of the space so they could wander the exhibition as they pleased, experiencing one room after the other in whatever order struck their fancy. Children in the neighborhood would regularly run through the space to see what was going on, and perhaps later that evening, would bring their parents back to give them a narrated tour of their own unique experiences. In the span of just one year, seven exhibitions, plus an Encore show, were held at MMX. Each exhibition had a screening program, live performances, artists’ talks, workshops, film nights, and many other events, giving a platform for the work of over 200 international artists in the old house on Linienstraße. There were many volunteers and supporters who helped to make this project the success that it was.
The space closed with the Encore show on February 19, 2011. This book presents the final documentation of the one-year project known as the MMX Open Art Venue.
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Contents 2 - 12 Introduction by Rebecca Loyche 14 - 33 Show I 34 - 47 Show II 48 - 67 Show III 68 - 83 Show IV 84 - 103 Show V 104 - 129 Show VI 130 - 149 Show VII 150 - 165 Encore Show 166 - 170 Selected Performances 171 - 175 Events 176 - 179 Acknowledgements 180 Imprint
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SHOW I
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January 29 - March 05, 2010
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Ingo Frรถhlich Untitled, 2010 Site-specific drawing with black marker
The blank slate of a new empty space, the fresh paint has dried and Frรถhlich looks to the walls to see what they can tell him. After a week of intense labor the piece is finished, all flat surfaces have been transformed into an optical illusion of line work that reflects the unique topographies of the space.
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Karin SchrĂśder Raumgestrick (Space knitting), 2010 Site-specific installation with yarn
Red yarn is delicately knitted and stretched from the floor to the ceiling, dividing the space and confronting the viewer. SchrÜder’s interest in the character of knitting continues her investigation into the intricate line work of those things knitted and those things drawn.
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Patrick Timm Motion ≈ Drawing, 2010 Motion detecting mechanical drawing machine
The movements throughout a room can be lifted and placed into a drawing. Motion sensors on the X and Y axes in the space capture the daily activities with the aid of the drawing machine which transcribes them onto paper. The number of people, the timing and speed of moving objects, create these mechanical drawings. This protocol creates products from space and time.
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Pablo Fernandez Pujol
Through non-traditional methods of juxtaposition, Fernandez Pujol always permeates humor into his work. Homage to Courbet takes Courbet’s sensationalized painting Origin of the world, and uses the static of an old television set to animate and highlight the essence of that painting. “Juanita’s Dream” has the latest techie gadget sweetly tucked into bed with the image of a beautiful woman sleeping —and snoring like a man.
Homage to Courbet 2010 TV Sculpture
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Juanita’s Dream 2010 Video sculpture
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archivo video dumbo - show I and show II The first two screening programs at MMX were by ar tists and curating duo, Caspar Stracke and Gabriela Monroy. The pair have been curating the D.U.M.B.O. International Film and Video Festival since 2005 and have a keen eye for presenting a diverse range of high caliber video work. Using their archive of the 2009 festival, they put together seven individual screening programs for MMX to show on a rotating cycle. One program was looped each day the exhibition was open; a visitor of the space could come seven days in a row and never see the same film twice. Programs and artists: Faux Deceptions: Red Cabinet | Kyung Woo Han, Naufrage | Clorinde Durand, Vertigo | Adam Cruces, Domenica 6 Aprile, ore 11:42 | Flatform, The Wind | J. Tobias Anderson, DU3L@ G4NRYU 15L4ND | Jon Rafman, AANAATT | Max Hattler, Hvalreki | Rebecca Loyche, Balbuceo II Ver.Gimena | Jiro Suzuki, Balbuceo IV ver.Rita Ponce de Leon | Jiro Suzuki, Side Effects Ouaga! Hommage a l’homme du 4 aout (expérience sensitive d’une ville africaine) | Giuseppe Spina, Julie Ramaioli, Alessandro Gagliardo, Tonite (Reprise) | Eileen Maxson, Shooting Locations | Thomas Kutschker, Excerpt | Guli Silberstein, Week End | Thomas Galler Bird Days First Firing | Kelly Oliver & Keary Rosen, Hyacinth | Lydia Moyer, The Commoners | Penny Lane & Jessica Bardsley, Watching The Wolfman Dance The Foxtrot | Sari Carel, Le Nouveau Omiza | Ute Hoerner and Mathias Antlfinger Hopeless Beauty The Force of Beauty:The Beauty of Force | Keith Sanborn, Hapless, Helpless & Hopeless | Robert Kennedy and Peter Dowling, e t’aime, moi non plus | Alejandra Baltazares, Venusia | Aline Bouvy and John Gillis, Corina at the studio | Giovanni Cervantes, Una frase de Kerouac | Marco Casado Familiar Places Health,Wealth, Name, and Fame (Rangpur) | Gautam Kansara, Guided | Gautam Kansara, Imaginary Girlfriend | Erica Eyres. When How To Live Was Undecided | Darren Floyd Horror Vacui Noir | Mirko Martin, Open House | Diane Nerwen, Under construction | Zhenchen Liu Scattering Stars Opening Night | Tim Leyendekker, Celluloidiva | Harald Schleicher, The Mad Masters | Sascha Pohle, Unknown Unknown(s) | Mark Boswell, Ensemble | Leigh Davis
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Curated by Caspar Stracke and Gabriela Monroy faux deceptions
side effects
bird days
hopeless beauty
familiar places
horror vacui
scattering stars
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Daniel Wilson A Visual History, 2010 Interactive installation The piece A Visual History is an interactive installation that employs the movement of the observers as raw material for the creation of other images conveying temporal, as opposed to spatial, information. The work enables a real-time, dynamic viewing of the creation of narrative.
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Darri Lorenzen “SHADES III�, 2010 Installation The room is dark but slowly the light bulbs begin to glow until everything is illuminated. Abruptly, everything goes dark again. Then, the image of a pair of sunglasses lights up the room. The cycle starts all over again.
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Reynold Reynolds Six Easy Pieces, 2010 Film set
Reynold Reynolds metamorphosed part of the MMX space into a film set of a 1920’s cabaret to shoot part of his project Six Easy Pieces. The public was allowed to view the film shoots, and at times be part of the production.
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The work is based on the book “Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of physics explained by its most brilliant teacher” by Richard P. Feynman.
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Rebecca Loyche Circadian, 2010 Light & Sound installation
The Circadian project is a light therapy installation that offers the visitor an otherworldly experience. Entering the space through a whited-out cylindrical door, the visitor is surprised to find a completely white room filled with full-spectrum light everywhere he or she looks. Accompanied by an atmospheric soundscape by Bj枚rk Vigg贸sd贸ttir, the piece was immensely appreciated by a sun deprived Berlin public.
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SHOW II
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March 12 - April 16, 2010
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Rasso Hilber / Mikko Gaestel Blasomat, 2007 Interactive video installation
Blasomat is an interactive installation that provides a structure for visitors to interact with it in a rather unusual way. While one person sits inside the photo-booth like machine, the person or people on the outside of the booth can observe the sitter posing inside by means of a life sized picture on a monitor in real time mounted on the structure’s exterior. By pressing a button the external viewers are in control of the timing and duration of a strong current of air with the speed of 260 km/h blasting into the sitter’s face and becoming the object of curiosity and amusement for the audience. 36
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Veronika Schumacher ///As Against the Whiteness of the Wall/ ~ the next level, 2010 Custom wallpaper installation
Schumacher made a custom installation by creating her signature sinister wallpaper work. From a distance, the work looks like a simple design, but come closer to it and the creatures and critters, weapons and patterns are all intertwined.
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Francisco Montoya Hasta Nunca, 2010 Installation A paper airplane hangs from a fishing rod that is supported by three haphazardly placed stones. This fragile sculpture faces towards a black and white painting on the wall that depicts a grotesque storm cloud that seems to flirt with the plane. A single small light drops down from the ceiling to illuminate the white paper aircraft, allowing the spectator to read the small words written on it: Hasta Nunca‌ Until Never‌
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Clemens Wilhelm Je crois que je suis malade (I believe I am sick), 2009 Video installation
This video performance was shot in the exhibition wasistdas, that was held in the Paris apartment in which French playwright Molière lived. He also died there after performing his last play, “The Imaginary Invalid,” a comedy about hypochondria, health mania, lack of attention, and the public display of one’s illness. Even though the play premiered in 1673, its themes are strikingly contemporary. Visitors entered individually through white curtains into a hospital-like room that contained only a chair and a camera. Left to oneself and facing the camera, he or she was asked to speak the line: Je crois que je suis malade. The video has no sound to enhance the theatricality and artifice of the individual performances. 42
Installation shot from the performance at the exhibition “wasistdas�
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Constantin Hartenstein The Exciting Life, 2010 9 channel video projection
With a background in advertising, Hartenstein continues to make video work dealing with pop cultural influences that compare glamour and dirtiness. The Exciting Life shows nine different advertising videos smartly cut to accentuate the crassness and slickness of the industry at its finest. “Pretty, proud and hairless, there’s nothing better out there and you’re gonna love it every single day.”
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Florian Gwinner Qualle, 2010 Video Sculpture with projections
Roots come out of the traffic and shop signs in the model of a city street. They converge in a monolith that reaches for the sky. On the backsides of both rows of houses, monumental stairs lead to the building’s highest ridge. Videos of people trying to climb up the stairs and struggling to get to the top are cut short by the tools that made the model. It is a self-defeating cycle, all taking place at the viewer’s eye level.
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SHOW III
School class from the Berlin Metropolitan School tending their vegetable patch. 48
April 30 - May 28, 2010
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Tobias Sternberg Schadensorge, 2010 Found materials, custom built rubber band-wooden guns
Schadensorge was a sculptural installation built specifically for the front garden of MMX. The title is a play on the German word Schadenfreude, a word that means the enjoyment of someone else’s misfortune. Sternberg is suggesting that maybe it’s more appropriate to feel regret in this case for a nature that will soon exist only in our fairytales and on the heraldic shields of our towns and countries. The visitor’s participation is key since they are encouraged to take part in the extermination of the last big mammals of Germany. Three wooden rifles were available in the gallery so that the spectators could become the hunters and shoot the bear, bison and mammoth with rubber bands.
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Cedric Bomford Der Zaun (The Fence), 2010 Found materials Der Zaun, is a structure using scavenged materials from the neighborhood. Bomford built a fence and guard booth in front of the MMX space. Not only physically changing the outward appearance of the house, the work evokes the significance of the house’s history and location in Berlin.
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David Krepfle Trophies, 2008 Sculpture installation Using discarded and found materials, Krepfle makes at first glance, whimsical and playful sculptures. But upon closer inspection, these Trophies are the looming heads of creatures. Krepfle has stalked and hunted these bicycle pedals, bits of fur and fluff, reflectors and tire tube animals down.
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Screening Program III
Mosca, Juan Arata, 1’00” AR. What is time? A fly, for example, never lives for longer than one month. How must that feel?
Wenn Sie Etwas Sehen, Alex Golden, 7’30” US. This finished opera exists entirely of stop-motion animations, composed of thousands of still photographs to create a high definition video projection.The result is an amalgam of handmade and photographic elements that blend to form poignant operatic worlds.
St. Petersberg, Mikko Gaestel & Lilli Kuschel, 2’30” DE. The video turns a found reality into a theatre-stage with absurd choreography. The documental material can be perceived as a performance while the viewer remains in a distanced viewpoint seperated by the river.
Umbrella, Cat Tyc, 9’35” US. The lady has plenty to deal with: an unexpected pregnancy, a string of appointments, parties to attend and people to see. But now, to top it all off, she is being followed around by a man in town who keeps hitting her over the head with an umbrella. 58
Untitled, Meredith Davenport, 4’19” US. The War Games project is an investigation into the banality of violence by looking at men who play games inspired by modern wars. The games are played with a pellet gun and have themes that include terrorist attacks, kidnapping and the search for Osama bin Laden. Happy Happy Sad Sad, Ole Schmidt, 1’30” DE. Wanting to make a small film with the highest emotional potential written in it, Schmidt wrote a list about possible images he would add either to the category “happy” or “sad.” “Happy,” e.g. are sunsets, cake, toys, beaches, while “sad” has images of war, drought and devastation. Burn, Reynold Reynolds, 10’00” US. Burn is a narrative collage, peopled with devils, angels, and allegorical creatures. A house burns from the inside while its occupants focus on the emotional issues of their lives. The inhabitants serve life sentences with no remission in an architecture of insecurity - while impending disaster is ignored. Shine, Ellie Krakow, 5’00” US. Shine twists the romantic movie genre, replacing the lovers’ bodies with lights, and the story with a narration that sets up visual expectations that can only be fulfilled in the viewer’s imagination.
Embodied Truth, Susanne Bürner, 5’30”DE. Exploring the theme of séances, the medium spiritually and artificially created energy, as well as the mystery itself. The video revolves around a group of women preparing for an inminent séance that is about to happen.
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Ingrid Roe Tomorrow Never Comes, 2009 Neon sign, digital and C-prints The focus for Tomorrow Never Comes is on objects and substances that are used discretely, even secretly. Substances made for preparation, indeed intended as an overture to sex for the individual who is attracted to them, they testify to the contradiction between what is socially expected from our physical and emotional limits. Through their promise and failure, they are an utopian measure that has found some acceptance in the world: a private Wunderkammer, snake oil that pretends to create an equality of sexual desirability while never making good on its promise.
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Michael Ebert Stiller, 2010 Site-specific installation
A string comes out of a hole in the ground and continues its way up to the sky. The end is not visible and it appears infinite. Ebert’s work is based on the poetic reduction of an essence. The objective is the fragility of the past and memory, and the resulting contradictions in the individual’s perception, reflecting the continuous metamorphosis of the individual in time.
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Julian Oliver Six Composite Acts, 2010 Video with digital insertions
Julian Oliver visited the MMX space and recorded six imaginary interactions within the gallery’s back courtyard. He then inserted digital sculptural elements that completed these actions, resulting in an alternate reality of the site. The final outcome was exhibited in a large-format, HD video projection in a room immediately adjacent to the courtyard, connecting both the original and altered spaces.
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Karol Slowik Immaculate Conception, 2010 Photo-luminescent materials, epoxide
There is no shape without the light. In the same way like there is no picture in total darkness. But the shape can be the light itself. The material can only modify the light. The shape and the light are put together into one object, a de-materialized light sculpture.
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SHOW IV
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June 5 - July 9, 2010
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Elke Graalfs Don’t worry about the finish, 2010 Mural
Loosely based on a Ruben’s painting, the intense paint palette licks flames of colors through the ceiling of a hallway and across the walls suggesting some inferno. A coarse white weave of twisting line work lays on the surface like a veil in some places, and in others like the rib cage of many skeletons. 70
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Hannah Murgatroyd / Nico LeBarge The Harmony of Disorder, 2009 Paintings
LeBarge and Murgatroyd met in 2009 at the Leipzig International Ar tist Residency at Spinnerei, a former cotton mill, home to studios of the Leipzig painters, Neo Rauch and Tilo Baumgartel. They came together one year later to exhibit at the MMX space since both hold a common foundation in the observational process, inspired by the sight of the world around them to capture and transform imagery.
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SCREENING PROGRAM IV
Bliss and Heaven, Jesper Just, 7’42” DK. Just’s work subverts stereotypical images of men, creating suggestive yet enigmatic situations where characters are unafraid to express their emotions.
Kermis (Funfair, A Tribute to Life), Annette Otto, 11’0” NL. Poetic film about the funfair, which concentrates on human conditions: The enchantment of children. The ease of youth, full of expectations. Fleeting smiles. Devotion to the moment. Felicity… but also melancholy and vulnerability.
Art Appreciation I, II, III, Eric Fleischauer, 3’0” US. Handled with a delicacy that defies a read of art-iconoclasm, these three videos show an obsessive level of personal identification with works by Koons, Warhol, and Beuys.
Test Video, Carlos Godinho, 5’50” PT. All over the world, people share their own video camera tests throughout the internet. Using a selection of these videos, the artist created a journey based on the technologically enlarged vision that people have of this planet.
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Between Dreams, Iris Olsson 10’30” FN. A third class sleeping car of the Trans-Siberian train travelling through Russia. What are the passengers dreaming of, and which of the dreams come true?
French Penguin, Jonathan Monaghan, 2’34” US. In a virtual 3-D world, an Emperor Penguin is fused with Gothic architecture, creating an absurd life form balancing between the organic and synthetic.
Tel Aviv/Jaffa, Doron Golan, 2’58” IL. The border of the cities of Tel Aviv and Jaffa along the Mediterranean sea. the physical border between Jews and Arabs. The beach. The smallest arrangement and minimum conditions to create a narrative, peaceful and pastoral accompanied stress and anxiety.
Papillon D’ Amour, Nicolas Provost, 3’30” DK. Provost subjects a number of fragments from a film by Akira Kurosawa a mirror effect, thus creating ethereal figures, constantly remelting into each other and slipping away again. The “imploding butterfly” is a metaphor for the impossibility of love.
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Maurice Doherty Waiting, 2010 Single screen video installation with amplified sound
Five waitresses were employed to stand and hold a tray of filled champagne glasses for as long as possible. Owing to the weight of the trays and building fatigue, over time one by one each waitress drops the champagne glasses, which crash to the floor with a loud bang. The piece was recorded in real-time in a single shot that took 33 minutes, 12 seconds.
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Lukas K端hne Movements, 2010 Video and sound work
3 times, 1 minute 11, and its subjective perception. The three short videos in these durational studies examine the extreme ways sounds can be found in both urban and natural settings, and the in-between places where modernity collides with history. Shot in La Juanita, Uruguay, Tallinn, Estonia and Berlin, Germany.
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Madeline Stillwell Banquet, 2010 Performance Installation
The action of humans creating structure around them is directly correlated with an accumulation of wealth. But no matter how much we build, there is always something torn up, destroyed, and dragged in the dirt along the way. Over the course of several performances, the artist moves herself through the installations, both activating and destroying her work, referencing Bacchus, Greek god of excess and consumption. As in the Bacchus story, her performance work is a negotiation of structure and freedom, control and chaos. Given her use of found spaces, classical garments, and color palettes that camouflage her into the surroundings, the result becomes one of mythical struggle, complete with conflicts such as vanity and modesty, disappointment and endurance, glory and ambivalence.
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Pablo Uribe Atardecer, 2009 2 Channel Video Installation
A man in a white shirt walks into the middle of the frame at life size scale to the viewer. With an air of casualness but precision, he shatters the silence and begins to make diurnal calls, screeches and cries of aboriginal
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animals. Shortly after, on an adjacent screen, in a light blue shir t, the same man releases the calls and noises of the nocturnal animals. The double portraits call to each other day and night.
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SHOW V
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July 16 - Aug 20, 2010
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Islamiya Scarr Die Vogelgetränke (The Birdbath), 2010 Sculpture Scarr’s work explores the role of image making through narrative. Her work, comprised of sculpture, collage and installation, can be described as an assemblage of parts (objects that have been made and found) that are reconfigured together into a new form – a kind of re-fictionalization of objects and images. This piece explores the theme of temptation. An Eve-like figure stands over a pool of water whilst a trashy looking handbag (possibly from a night out) hangs over the other side of the sculpture.
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Laura McLardy If the inside is nothing more than a fold of the outside, 2010 Public installation An A4 piece of paper is folded sideways four times in the same direction, at certain intervals. The resulting shape is a single-surface that doubles back on itself. In one continuous flow, it forms a kind of floor, wall and ceiling. These architectural features have a functional aspect, yet this function is not clearly defined since there is no clear designation of interiority and exteriority, no clear division between inside and outside. The structure provides an inside on the outside. The visitor is invited to enter to remain for a time, to dwell or inhabit this structure. A specific usage is not prescribed.
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Andy Holtin Contraption for the Influence of Breath II, 2010 Interactive sculpture The viewer walks into the space to discover an elaborate branching system of plastic bags on the wall. At the beginning of this networked system, a small black pinwheel waits for the viewer to blow on it and add the catalyst of air, which instantly activates the piece. The bags begin to inflate in a smooth chain of command from the beginning until the end of the system as if they were caught in the wind, an inflated army of advertising jellyfish, all under the influence of breath.
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Kuno Ebert Mindset, 2010 Kinetic object
The rise and fall of a machine that extends its arms invites the viewer to look at him or herself in its many mirrors. The mirrors then retract, taking the imagery and any thoughts provoked by the reflection back with it. The artist is interested in the mindset of the viewer and what occupies the in-between of self-reflection to narcissism.
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CHICAGO / BERLIN EXCHANGE
The Jettisoned, Yoni Goldstein / Meredith Zielke, 5’05” US. This piece references the tradition of the Tableau Vivant in painting and photography as it maps representations of identity and the body, specifically sites for ritual healing and the notion of collective, conditional, and porous anatomies. Somewhere Only We Know, Jesse McLean, 5’15” US. Balanced between composure and collapse, individuals anxiously await their fate. This video is part two of the Bearing Witness Trilogy which is concerned with how we, as a culture, watch ourselves, especially in moments of great emotional significance.
The Fallen, Steve Reinke, 4’45” US. The American military casualties of the second Gulf War for whom photographs were available as of November 7th 2006--arranged by physical attractiveness.
Black and White Trypps Number Four, Ben Russell, 10’30” US. Using a 35mm strip of motion picture slug featuring the American comedian Richard Pryor, this extended Rorschach assault on the eyes emerges out of a flickering chaos created by incompatible film gauges.
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Curated by Eric Fleischauer
</3, Chelsea Welch, 5’35” US. </3 suggests an intimate look at the life of a virginal teeny-bopper whose naiveté leads to neurotic obsession with a chimera, and despondency over a chopped and screwed-up Justin Bieber.
Between the Sheets, Warren Cockerham, 6’15” US. A hidden cell phone camera documents the trek of a box of sheets as it travels through a Wal-mart™ Distribution Center. Part roller coaster ride, part Marxist critique, this cat and mouse game was shot on the final day of ten years of service by associate 2569.
On the Edge of Utterance and Being Articulate: A Brief Introduction to the “Poetics of Space,” Todd Simeone, 4’45” US. As it staggers through purposeful communication and the boundaries of legibility, this video highlights the essentially arbitrary relationship between words and their meanings while creating a language of its own comprised of breaths, pauses and punctuation.
Anne Frank’s Chestnut Tree (Amsterdam, 2008), Jason Lazarus, 15’45” US. “…from my favourite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind…” – Anne Frank, February 23rd, 1944
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Gert-Jan Akerboom Accidental Collage, 2010 Installation with drawings
Everywhere in Berlin one can find half-collapsed buildings and forgotten corners where smooth architectural lines meet chaotic destruction and deterioration. The artist explores the contradiction between something carefully planned and designed with something unplanned and random, how something new and beautiful can be created out of the juxtaposition of the two. - Azra Ahmed The Accidental Collage installation reflects this contradiction, the mural creates a sense of collapse and imminent destruction in a solid, concrete structure. Extending out into the cour tyard, the muralâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ar tificially realized scene of destruction comes face to face with the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own natural erosion. Seeing both side by side allows one to appreciate what they have in common despite their very different means of creation. 96
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Kinga Dunikowska
NEW, NOWE, NEU… , 2009 Sequined text on paper
The title of this piece comes from Oscar Wilde’s conclusion that “Illusion is the first of all pleasures.” This reveals a deeply rooted truth but the escape into illusive worlds does not bring understanding. It only leaves us with a melancholic emptiness. To satisfy this hollow feeling we sometimes turn to beautiful and seductive things, which, in this instance, is represented with paper blossoms made of adver tisements on a tree that grows out of the melancholy stone. We may become entrapped by the constant chase of the New, but sometimes we are lucky enough to recognize the pure potential of change and then the New might become a transformative moment in our lives.
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First of all Pleasures , 2009 mixed media Installation 99
Gianni Moretti Settantasette centesimi (Seventy-seven cents), 2008 Installation with fabrics, variable dimensions.
This work is based on the accumulation process of massification. Each fabric is a remnant that the ar tist did not change in size, nor did he chose the fabrics based on the patterns. The initial factor that unites the material is the cost, seventy-seven cents per pound. Moretti cut out the silhouettes of people and hung them upside down, the inner clippings and strings of the cut fabric spilling out onto the floor, connecting.
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Lana Vogestad
Bones to Skin, 2009 Video & Sound installation, projection on salt
Vogestadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pieces are about ephemeral and phenomenological experiences. Using salt and plastic on which to project, the imagery leaves the confines of a flat surface and begins to inhabit, morph and come alive in the room.
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Smoke Signals, 2008 Video & Sound installation, projection on plastic
Each piece plays one at a time in tandem; each cycle orchestrated with subtle and climatic sound that cascades and washes over the viewer.
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SHOW VI
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Over Performance by AlteregoRelativamenteSensibili at the Opening of Show VI
August 27 - October 10, 2010
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David Sherry Artist in a piece of luggage on a shelf, 2010 shelf, suitcase, artist
Sherry works with the humor found in everyday objects and activities, always pushing boundaries. The performance he did at MMX came from his recent fascination with suitcasesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;cutting them up and sitting in them for periods of time in different ways. He liked the contradiction of being stuck inside a suitcase, which is usually associated with travel, excitement, progression and freedom. For this work he sat in a suitcase on a shelf two meters off the ground and waited. After the crowdsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; initial amusement the work took on a morose atmosphere, as he stayed stranded and armless for two hours, hovering above.
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Laura Napier Project for a street corner, 2008-2010 3 Channel Video Installation
Reichstag, Berlin 2010
Three stacked television monitors in the front room of MMX displayed videos from Napierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crowd intervention performance series project for a street corner. In early September, Napier staged a new crowd intervention in the queue located in front of the Reichstag with seven volunteers, and subsequently added video footage of the new performance to her installation. Every afternoon, a predictably long and very straight queue formed outside the Reichstag in Berlin. Seven volunteers turn the end of this line in one direction, and then another over the span of eight minutes. Shot during the afternoon of September 2, 2010.
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Out of Control Initiated by Juan Arata Out of Control is a project that focuses on the process of artist curating artist. It intends to explore the chain of trust in taste that an artist can have on another artist: one artist selects and curates the next one, and so on. Out of Control was a series of exhibitions during Show VI at MMX Open Art Venue. Taken all together, these shows presented a kind of group show, although they were not simultaneous. The idea was to start a process of curating in which each selected artist would have to select and curate the next artist. This process aimed to illustrate a solid chain of selection-curation, which concluded with a final group show with all the participating artists. The last artist will start the next exhibition--whenever this happens.
Paintings and Installation, 2010 110
Juan Arata presents SSMIDD
Installation and performance, 2010 111
SSMIDD presents Lan Hungh
Installation with thread and 3-D glasses, 2010 112
Lan Hungh presents Phillipe Marcus
Paintings, 2010
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Phillipe Marcus presents Stephanie Custance
Ink and oil drawings, carved plaster sculptures 2010
Site-specific sculpture and sound installation, Ink and oil drawings 2010
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Stephanie Custance presents Gab Heller
Ink drawings and animation 2010
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Gab Heller presents Christel Fetzer
Installation, 2008
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Out Of Control Performances Liang Ya-Hui The center of this work researches how to express oneself without using any of the globally accepted signs. The piece tries to reach a form of understanding beyond formal language by mixing the different mediums of music, dance and theater to express a primitive sensation.
Elizabeth Wurst Pop-Aktivismus A site-specific action where pop songs are used to activate the viewer and reflect upon current political and social issues. In this case, the tree in the backyard is involved as Wurst emotionally sings to it â&#x20AC;&#x153;I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean to hurt you...â&#x20AC;? focusing attention on ecological issues.
Joakim Stampe From Manifesto - Marilyn Arsem Performance art always operates on a human scale. The artist uses real material and real actions; his interactions with the crowd remain with the crowd. His sees no boundaries between art and life.
Chuyia Chia An experimental durational action, negotiating with material and body in long hours. The idea was to investigate how the body emotionally and physically experiences being trapped by a webbing of string, cocooning the body with patience, adjusting the path with meditative mind, and attempting total concentration. 117
Julischka Stengele Body Drawings Dressed in a black bodysuit, the artist places herself in the freshly drawn outlines of audience membersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; silhouettes. She tries to fit into the chalk profiles. She gets up and the outline has changed by her overlaying presence and the traces of the othersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; imprints on her body.
Brina Stinehelfer Es Wird Stinehelferâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s performance is about the power of potentiality. The expectation of an action can be as potent as the action itself.
Dovrat Ana Meron Leaks Standing with stickers of the Bio logo on her nipples and holding a bowl filled with warm milk and honey, Meron invited the public to take a sip with a straw during her three-hour performance. Using the body with the bio logo brings up many questions about the accessible qualities of life.
Elana Katz Color Me Empty II The artist paints her face with heavy stage make-up. She then approaches a member of the audience and transfers the paint from her face onto theirs. The artist then paints her face again and approaches a new member of the audience. This action is repeated for over an hour. 118
SCREENING PROGRAM VI It’s Three in the Afternoon, Andrew de Freitas, 1’21” NZ. The video is a study of movement applied though synchronizations of human bodily movements. The video manipulates time-codes in order to effectively parallel the resonance of movement-image and audio sensation.
Pop Activism, Elizabeth Wurst, 7’13” PE. Elizabeth Wurst sings in public spaces in order to address political, economic and social issues. In this action, she alludes to issues of consumerist needs and one’s dependency on industry by directly utilizing diesel oil from a company owned by BP.
Art Appreciation (Jeff Koons), Eric Fleischauer, 1’00” US. As the title suggests, these videos enact the interior experience of processing a work of art. Here, the connection is provoked by longing, desire, and validation, as well as an increasing de-materialization of personal experiences.
Kool-Aid Man In Second Life: In Search of the Virtual Sublime, Jon Rafman, 10’24” CA. The Kool-Aid Man avatar leads audiences across futuristic cyberpunk megalopolises, exotic, furry sex clubs, and psychedelic jungles, while providing live critical commentary and discussing the implications of virtual worlds for modern society. 119
High Balling, Zachary Fabri, 2’08” US. High Balling is a video that documents a street performance in Brooklyn. Often, things from the past are very heavy. Sometimes, this weight is a silly imaginary object, but most of the time it is a bowling ball waiting to come out.
Tell Me the Truth, Inez de Vega, 2’39” AU. A series of street interviews reminiscent of late night TV, asks the simple question, “Do you think I am fat?”. The responses from mannered to honest, reflect everyone’s neurotic obsession with self and appearance in a humorous way.
Buscando al Sr. Goodbar, Michelle Teran, 5’CA. Buscando is a threefold tour which takes place simultaneously on Google Earth, YouTube, and on a bus. The passengers of the bus embark on a physical search for the locations and authors of various YouTube videos produced in the city.
Balance Study, Jacob Tonski, 1’ US. A video studying balance, isolated from a fixed horizon, inspired by disorienting episodes in life.
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Puke Narration, Hugh Walton, 4’18” US. The video attempts to reconcile the artist’s intentions with the reaction it receives. The eating and regurgitating of Alphabet Soup acts as a metaphor for the artist’s own educational experience and brings awareness to the “severe and condemning definition of a learning disability.”
Gesichtsmusik, Ben Kinsley, 2’ 22” US. Gesichtsmusik is a musical self-portrait. All the sounds were produced with Kinsley’s voice and body and through meticulous editing and layering, an audio-visual composition was created.
Kiss, Cari Freno, 1’ 50” US. From the Pocahontas State Park series, Kiss is self-surveillance fostering absurdly promiscuous behavior, alone, in front of a camera. These “secret acts” are sincere attempts at self actualization, but more accurately convey the ineffective, naive and pathetic tenderness of a rookie’s efforts.
Looking through Tom Cruise’s Eyes, David Sherry, 3’50” IE. Risky Business was released in 1983. Top Gun was released in 1986. Growing up in Ireland, the artist and his friends started to take on Tom’s mannerisms from a very young age. Five years ago when he made this work, the idea of Tom Cruise started to get a bit weird. 121
Kati Gausmann Haufen (pile), 2010 Spatial drawing, chalk, variable measurements
fallen lassen / let fall die gefallene Form zeichnend umlaufen / revolving the fallen form while drawing wegnehmen / remove fallen lassen / let fall 222 pieces of clothing are dropped one at a time, and the outline is traced. Then the next piece of clothing drops. The white chalk marks build up spatially and the pile of outlines virtually rises from the floor.
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Ivonne Dippmann Fang den Hasen! (Catch the Hare!) 2010 Mural
Dippmannâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s idea for her wall work in the back courtyard came to her after thinking about the history of the building and its past inhabitants. She came up with a punky, vest-clad hooligan with a knife and Pinocchio nose to stalk the outside space.The game of Catch the Hare can be a playful, or a wicked one, the same line in which the piece hovers between.
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Bernd Bleffert
Sandraum (Sand Space), 2010 Sound installation
Two pendulums formed by large cones sieve sand onto a clustering of multi-sized drums. The effortlessness of the setup, drumheads made from candy wrappers, foil, and plastics, used metal funnels, and sand, counters the extraordinary range of sounds made. The rhythmic sway of the cones changes the pitch, the tones, and the length of the meditative, breathy sound of the falling sand. The second sound installation with water drops is similar in design. With varying lengths of drum shafts and the amount of water dropping controlled by nozzles, the timbres of this piece are reminiscent of being in a forest after a rainfall.
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Tropfraum (Drop Space), 2010 Sound installation 127
Sarah Rechberger
Frameroom Light and sound Installation
An animated light architecture is visible by the means of five scrim textiles hung in the space, which the viewer can walk between, projecting and intercepting the light. The shifting shapes and patterns of the light move fluently through different movements inspired by the celestial rhythms and the dynamics of physics. The light drawings become audible to the viewer by wearing headphones that funnel an ever-changing oscillating noise that reacts to the light patterns changing.
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SHOW VII
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Installation by Jason Burgess and Jonathan Grรถger - geysers with sound
October 29 - December 3, 2010
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Lancelot Coar & Patrick Harrop Fabric structure and media art projection program, 2010 The fabric installation by Lancelot Coar explores the formal and spatial territories that are generated by the construction of a tensile membrane grasping at all surfaces of the city form. By building with a structure in pure tension, the invisible potentials between the elements in the urban landscape are evoked and introduce an alternative dynamic surface that binds them together. The images projected on the surface are curated by Coar and Harrop and explore the topography generated by the site-specific installation. Featuring media work by Mathieu LĂŠger, Giles Hendrix, jhave (David Jhave Johnston) and Shannon Collis.
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James Bullough Anamorphic Study #1, 2010 Mural The work of James Bullough often deals with the juxtaposition of opposing styles. In this piece, he has combined the contemporary motif of graffiti with a traditional technique of optical illusion made popular by renaissance artists called “Anamorphic Perspective”. When viewed from most places in the room, this mural appears to be an abstract combination of lines and colors, but when viewed from one pre-determined vantage point or “sweet spot,” the lines take on a strange three-dimentional quality and appear to float in the room free from the walls on which they are painted.
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Juan Arata Dirty Realism, 2010 Painting & Installation
Arataâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nihilistic paintings and installation explore the contemporary consumer culture with subjects that are completely shaped by the brands with which they interact. The characters in his work are miserable, trapped, marked and confused. The subjects seem to be attempting to copy the lifestyle they have seen depicted in the media, but fall short. They are just not good looking enough. Arata paints gesturally, relying on imagination and memory rather than by photographs, creating works which are psychologically powerful. The low-tech, anti-airbrushed beauty is the antithesis of the advertising mystique presented to us all.
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Risa Puno
Suburban Legends, 2009 Interactive vending machine
“Suburban Legends” presents the participant with a variety of packets labeled with drawings of quintessential suburban treats. Each packet contains a set of jellybeans that, when eaten all at once, tastes like the food on its label. Outfitted in a kitschy “cozy”, this machine offers mouthfuls of suburban sunshine that are sugarcoated, pre-packaged, self-serve, and as American as apple pie. “Look Here” is a series of site-specific autostereograms, designed to play with perception, both figuratively and literally. Better known as Magic Eye images, autostereograms are patterned images that create the visual illusion of three-dimensional depth. By relaxing and unfocusing their eyes while standing in front of the pattern, visitors can see a hidden 3-D shape emerge. The message of each piece is found in the relationship between the pattern and the hidden image. 138
Plastic, 2010 autostereogram adhesive vinyl print
Fries and Fitness , 2011 autostereogram adhesive vinyl print 139
SCREENING PROGRAM VII A Moment of Unknown Quantity, Carl Slater, 5’49” UK. As time unfolds, an unknown event creates unexpected and infinite possibilities. As we watch the landscape, a boat makes its final journey, birds become all too aware and a great transformation begins. The film sets forth a notion of the transition from one place to another through an occurrence between time and event. Take My Life Please or A List of Things to Do Today in One Act, Kelly Oliver & Keary Rosen, 5’19” US. Observation, inspiration, imagination, humiliation, self-deprecation, transformation, determination, proclamations, rhyme and time define this five minute epic rant. The audio portion was written and performed by Rosen set to video shot and edited by Oliver. Large Scale, Tobias Rosenberger, 6’06” DE. A composition of synchronized videos captured with pre-programmed computercontrolled moving cameras in May 2010, just a few months before the construction of “a destination city of leisure for all ages” in the American West.
Partagas, Dwayne Butcher, 3’09” US. It is the end of the day and he just wants to sit, relax, and think about the next thing he has to do. The artist is constantly thinking about his inclusion in the art world. But, he really does not know what that means, so, he added a contemporary classical music audio component in an attempt to make the piece more “high art”. 140
Heim, Clemens Wilhelm, 15’00” DE. 12 citizens of a small town were cast through local newspaper ads to tell their favourite jokes on their home couches disguised with animal masks. In various ways the jokes discuss the most common themes of society, such as its values, hierarchies, dreams, or mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion.
The Russians are Coming, Nicole Tschampel, 0’45” US. By decontextualizing a sign from the 1966 American comedy, The Russians are Coming examines the inherent potential in moments of change--that by default an ending always equates a beginning.
Memory I, Rebecca Loyche, 3’21” US. The Memory series are psychological portraits of past recollections. They are loosely based on taboo themes of amnesia, narcissism, infatuation, and compulsive disorders. The audio and the visual compete and contrast with one another so that the viewer grasps the memory from going back and forth between the mediums.
Carols of Cockayne, Sylbee Kim, 7’00” KR. This video is the final part of a one-year-research project on the mediated visions of war. The narrative evolves around different quotations on war and its techniques, memories and fantasies interwoven into a fictive user’s manual for a war toy that connects the viewer to the remote sites of war.
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Geoffrey Garrison A picture gallery, 2010 Video set & installation
Installation shot
Garrison imagines and dramatizes the space around a picture by staging the physical environment by dressing up one of the rooms of the MMX space as a mock museum galler y. He also choreographed viewer sâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; encounter s and discussions within this mock space. Five short scenes were acted out and filmed in this museum set, and then made into a video that was shown in the same room. Similarly, the video itself has no beginning, middle, or end, but is composed as a loop, a series of episodes that can be shown in any order.
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Still from Video
Set shot
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Valentin Hertweck Untitled, 2010 Two cube installation Two movable wall units, each consisting of four walls on a rotating track system, pushes one wall so that the other walls will move. The eight walls come together to form two cubes within the white cube of the exhibition space. The viewer enters and pushes the wall on his or her way through the installation; this causes all the walls to interrelate and creates new spaces within the room trapping and releasing the inhabitants. The orientation in the space is always changing caused by the influence of the people inside it.
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BitteBitteJaJa Cadavre Exquises Vivantes, 2010 Video Installation
The artist duo BitteBitteJaJa (Ulu Braun & Roland Rauschmeier) merge digital physical shapes and characters from videos, feature films and TV documentaries into collage portraits. The Cadavre Exquises Vivantes is a series of video collages, which were developed from the graphical practice created by the surrealists of drawing common â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cadavres Exquis.â&#x20AC;? Braun and Rauschmeier add to the composition in sequence and allow only the end of what the previous person contributed. These stitched together video pieces can be read as Frankensteinish creatures floating just above the ground, or as hybrid prophets of the modern digital world.
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Jeongmoon Choi How to build a house, 2010 Filaments, Black lights, UV-Light Installation
This optical phenomenal room installation is a grid like formation with hundreds of glowing strings, creating a highly concentrated and meditative atmosphere. By disengaging the space from its familiar context using the three toned filaments and UV-light, Choi provides the viewer with a new physical and visual space to contemplate.
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ENCORE
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Igloo by James Bullough , Projection by Deacon Dunlop
January 28 - February 19, 2011
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Egill Sæbjörnsson Rotating Unit, 2010 Single-channel video projection with chicken wire object, rotating unit and sound
Sæbjörnsson’s work is an approach to experience, a mode of behaviors, a play that creates singular arrangements. A shape made of chicken wire is mounted onto a small rotating display. A video of stripes and other shapes is projected over the form as it turns. This creates new shapes of color and light on the chicken wire as well as on the wall behind it. The piece also incorporates music and projections in a way that is both comical and poetic. 152
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James Bullough Some day Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll see you there, 2011 Pencil on paper
The four subjects of these drawings have been immortalized as marble busts because they are people who have reached a superior level of accomplishment in their respective fields. The artist hopes to attain the same standard. 154
In these tediously rendered photorealistic pencil drawings, icons of urban culture are combined with ancient classical â&#x20AC;&#x153;high artâ&#x20AC;? techniqus to create an interesting blend of old and new. 155
SCREENING PROGRAM .11 I HateThis Town, Nicolas Provost, 2’00” DK. Softcore images on hardcore rhythms. This video consists of a collage of extravagant character action close-ups in porn films. Their suggestive movements were repetitively edited to the rhythms of electronic music, resulting in a slapstick situation.
Mother, Oksana Buraja, 16’30“ LT. Daylight invades an impoverished Lithuanian family’s home. Children swing at cockroaches and light vodka fires on the stove while their parents socialize beneath the shroud of dusty, smoke-filled air.
Mim Andar Avenida Canadá, Zachary Fabri, 3’45” US. For the action, white clothing was locally hand sewn. This clothing was perceived to be a recording device, which would use the red dirt that exists in the neighborhood as data. On daily walks, the artist’s clothes gradually became red with dirt or rich with minerals. The locals mine the dirt for the iron ore. The video documentation of those walks eventually became this video work, which creates and expands into a new abstract and poetic narrative.
Looking through Tom Cruise’s Eyes, David Sherry, 3’50” IE. Risky Business was released in 1983. Top Gun was released in 1986. Growing up in Ireland, the artist and his friends started to take on Tom’s mannerisms from a very young age. Five years ago when he made this work, the idea of Tom Cruise started to get a bit weird.
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L’Internationale, Marianna Marta Milhorat, 9’10”, CA. In a foreign landscape, futuristic factories and boreholes harvesting geothermal steam serve as beacons of familiarity in the face of an unknown future.
St. Petersburg, Mikko Gaestel & Lilli Kuschel, 2’30”, DE. The video turns a found reality into a theatre-stage with absurd choreography. The documental material can be perceived as a performance while the viewer remains in a distanced viewpoint seperated by the river.
Happy Happy Sad Sad, Ole Schmidt, 1’30”, DE. Wanting to make a small film with the highest emotional potential written in it, Schmidt wrote a list about possible images he would add either to the category “happy” or “sad.” “Happy,” e.g. are sunsets, cake, toys, beaches, while “sad” has images of war, drought and devastation.
Between Dreams, Iris Olsson 10:30, FN. A third class sleeping car of the TransSiberian train travelling through Russia. What are the passengers dreaming, and which of the dreams come true?
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Andy Holtin Passage, 2011 9-channel video on LCD panels
This installation explores recorded material as a generative system. These pieces rely on the viewerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comprehension of significant moments produced unpredictably by the interaction of un-synched video channels, creating new â&#x20AC;&#x153;liveâ&#x20AC;? moments with each looped iteration. Each of nine panels displays video from an independent source, playing the same content but edited for sequence and length, allowing for new and unscripted interactions between each panel. These works also strive to deal with video imagery as object, rather than as idealized and disembodied image surfaces, by engaging the physical means of display and the presence of the viewer within the installation.
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Ralph Ammer Solid, 2011 Digital drawing, Installation
This piece is part of a set of dynamic software-based images, which originate from a series of drawings. The subjects of these systemic reflections about pecuniary correlations are represented by houses or barns as the smallest economic entities. In this interactive drawing, the activity of the viewers is integrated into the calculation of the picture.
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Rebecca Loyche The Color of Absence, 2011 Light installation
The room is in complete darkness until a small glow begins in a dark window in the room. A sunrise process begins and the space peaks at the height of the dayâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;five minutes up and everything is bathed in a warm light. Then the day begins to reverse and it is a five minute descent into the light settling and then, all is dark again.
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Cecily Brennan Unstrung, 2007 16mm transferred to DVD, life-size projection Brennanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s film exposes the pieceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s protagonist to the overwhelming experience of coming undone by the means of large quantities of black liquid. The viewer stands by and watches as the protagonist is pummeled by the dark waves and the sound of this repeated action vibrates through the exhibition space. The film is a close examination and exploration of pressure, psychological trauma and the vulnerability of the human body.
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SELECTED PERFORMANCES
Trike - April 30, 2010 The Electro-Aerobic-Art-Pop duo from Canada. Stephen Taylor (keyboard, vocals) and Xania Keane (violin, vocals, tap-dancing).
Martin Molinaro October 28, 2010 A durational performance reacting to self-created signifiers and patterns on the gallery floor.
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Kool-Aid Man in Second Life - September19, 2010 A live tour with artist Jon Rafman through the internet’s largest user created, 3-D virtual world community as the avatar of the official mascot of the drink mix Kool-Aid.
Berglind Ágústsdóttirn December 3, 2010 Icelandic artist and musician Ágústsdóttirn performing.
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Francisco Montoya, Per Olaf Schmidt and Sebastian Neubauer February 12, 2010 A live orchestrated soundtrack to a vignette of horror movies.
Preslav Literary School March 5, 2010 The musical project of Adam Thomas, live tape collages of sounds drawn from an archive of self-generated, found sound, and spoken word cassettes. A process of transference, overdubbing and live manipulation reworks these source materials into compelling, ambient broadcasts. 168
Zachary Fabri October10, 2010 Performed in the garden of MMX, a psychological piece about stalking, lurking and hiding in the shadows.
Samanta April 30, 2010 The Chilean Pop band of Javier Fernandez, Daniel Urria and Francisca Villela.
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Nadia Salom August 27, 2010. Vocal and experimental music performance.
Flight of Stairs March 28, 2010. The Berlin based band of Anna Jandt, Ole Wulfers, and Linda Spjut.
the ebert brothers January 29, 2010 & January 28, 2011 Experimental-electronic soundwork and audio-visual performances by brothers Axel and Michael Ebert .
Friendly Falcons - The Catus Duet November 10, 2010 Performance by Jeffrey Kurosaki and Tara Pelletier. 170
Bob Rutman & DER Spyra April 1, 2010 Concert , visuals by Jรถrg Brocksch.
EVENTS
Slideluck Potshow Berlin III June 10, 2010 SLPS is a mash-up of the words slideshow and potluck presented as a multimedia slideshow combined with a potluck dinner from the local community of Berlin.
Arduino-Microcontroller Workshop for artists July 24-25, 2010 by Andy Holtin.
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Facets of a Culture
As an independent producer, curator and writer, Pamela Cohn attends many international festivals, guest-lectures at film schools, juries competitions, and programs special strands for some of the top international nonfiction film festivals in Europe, the Balkans, UK and the Middle East. As a result, she gets to see a good amount of stellar, groundbreaking film and video work that unfortunately does not get seen outside the confines of these festivals and university departments. The MMX team invited her to do a series of special evening screening events to give Berlin audiences a chance to encounter rarely seen but important nonfiction film works.
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Facets of a Culture, Curated and Presented by Pamela Cohn Screening Series I. Quiet City—Helsinki, Finland Screening program: Maa Jossa Voi Leikklä Elämää (Land for Playing Out Life) / Sanni Priha Valon Lapset (The Illuminous Ones) / Jaakko Ruuska Kansakunnan Olohuone (The Living Room of the Nation) / Jukka Kärkkäinen II. Selections from the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Directing, Warsaw, Poland. Screening program: Popatrz (Take a Look) / Adam Palenta Stiepan / Radka Franczak Na Dzialce (At the Datcha) / Thierry Paladino Za plotem (Behind the Fence) / Marcin Sauter Rendez-Vous / Marcin Janos Krawczyk Getting On / Renata Gabryjelska III. New work from the Balkans, award-winners from the Dokufest International Documentary & Short Film Festival, Prizren, Kosovo Screening program: 1717 Kilometrov Poletja 2009 (1717 Kilometers of Summer 2009) / Jurij Meden, Slovenia, Best Newcomer Tabakmädchen (Tobacco Girl) / Biljana Garvanlieva, Macedonia, Best Newcomer Kamerayla Izdivac (Married to the Camera) / Doga Kilcioglu, Turkey, Audience Award IV. Films from Scotland, co-presented with the Scottish Documentary Institute,Edinburgh Screening program: Peter in Radioland / Johanna Wagner Arcadia / David Graham Scott At Home with the Jedi / RF Simpson The Space You Leave / James Newton Calling Home / Maria Eduarda Andrade and Marcelo Starobinas The Inner Shape / Johanna Wagner The Housekeeper / Tali Yankelivich Melissa Immaculate / Julian Krubasik V. Films from The National Film School of Denmark Screening program: Albert’s Winter / Andreas Koefoed Book of Miri / Katrine Philp XY Anatomy of a Boy / Mette Carla T. Albrechtsen Candy Factory / Malina Terkelsen 173
Schitzeljagd: Citywide Scavenger Hunt for Adults, June 12, 2010 initiated by Daniel Wilson.
Tragic Turns of Life Bar hosted by Christoph & Philip, dates vary.
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12 Hour Jam Session initiated by Clemens Wilhelm, March 27-28, 2010.
Everyone Is Chinese Tomorrow? May 13, 2010 initiated by SideBySide Studio and with the critical spirit of Kunst Apotheke Salon, the discussion explored the love and hate relationship between the Occident and China. 175
Photo Credits: Thomas Kerrut 18 Patrick Timm 20, 21(2nd) Reynold Reynolds 30,31 Anna Pabis 32,36 Daniel Wilson 7(5th),10, 34-35,40-41, 48-49, 170(5th) Nicola Kühne 37 Clemens Wilhelm 42-43, 173 (top) Constantin Hartenstein 44-45 Florian Gwinner 46-47 Tobias Sternberg 52-53 Screening Program Stills: Ingrid Roe 60,61(2) courtesy of the artists Michael Ebert 62-63 Julian Oliver 64-65 archivo video dumbo Karol Slowik 66-67 24,25 Michael Jungblut 70, 71(2nd) CHICAGO BERLIN EXCHANGE Maurice Doherty 76-77 94-95 Lukas Kühne 78-79 Facets of Culture Madeline Stillwell 80-81 172-173 Pablo Uribe 82-83 III Gert-Jan Akerboom 96 58-59 Gianni Moretti100-101 IV Laura Napier108-109, 170 (1st) 74-75 Phillipe Marcus 113 (2nd) VI Gab Heller 115 119-121 Joachim Schulz 116 VII Lan Hungh 117 (top) 140-141 Juan Arata 136 .11 encore Knut Honsell 118 156-157 Risa Puno 139 Geoffrey Garrison 143 BitteBitteJaJa 147 Jeongmoon Choi 148 Rebecca Loyche 4,7,150,162-163, 170 (4th) James Bullough 154-155 Andy Holtin 158 Ralph Ammer 160-161 Edgard Berendsen 169 (bottom) Veronika Schuhmacher 170 (2nd) Casey Kelbaugh 172 (top), 171 (top) Jonathan Gröger 3,4,8,14-19,21(top),22,23,26,27,28,29,33,38,39,50-51,54-57,61(top), 68-69,71(top),72-73,84-89,97-99, 102-106,110-112,113(top),114, 117(except top),118 (except 3rd) , 122-135,137-138,142,144-145, 149, 152-153,159,166-168, 169 top, 170 (3rd),171(2nd) 172(2nd),273(2nd)
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This project would have never been such a success without all the help and support! Thank you very much!
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Acknowledgements:
Mirko Scheel Johanna Hintz Matt Wilson Jörg Broksch Thomas Kerutt Ingo Fröhlich Klaus Poklekowski Henry Streckenbach Lena Götz Björn Rebentisch Magdalena Fredeike Goetz James Bullough Rike Scharmann Cara Bell Jones Lucy Lee Devon Caranicas Mathias Strauß Marco Rydmann Florian Riediger Joachim Reck Magda Ziomek Ane Nicolás Rodríguez Chris Tschaber Lothar & Eva
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Santiago Fernández Daniel Schaetzler Phil v. Sassen Christoph Räthke Carrie Rubinstein Sanna Akehurst Nicole Dapper Matt Pych Jan Gerwien Elvia Pyburn-Wilk Liv Fleischhacker Gwendolyn Shannon Malte Petersen Peter Borchers Oliver Schwarz Rainer Kruschwitz Karin Schröder Patrick Timm Deacon Dunlop Anne Kaulfuss Pamela Cohn Jan-Hindrik Schulze Lukas Kühne
Partners
Supporters
EMBAJADA DEL URUGUAY ALLGÄU • BERLIN
Piere Schneider Haustechnik
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MMX Open Art Venue e.V. Linienstrasse 142/143 10115 Berlin One Year Art Project MMX Founded by
Jonathan Gröger Rebecca Loyche Philip Eggersglüß Daniel Wilson
Curatorial Team: Rebecca Loyche Jonathan Gröger Jason Burgess Production:
Jonathan Gröger
Corp. Design : Daniel Wilson Marketing & Legal Advice:
Philip Eggersglüß
This book has been published on the one year art project MMX © 2011, MMX Open Art Venue, the artists and authors. All rights reserved. Published by Co Verlag - www.co-verlag.com - Torstr. 111 - 10119 Berlin Layout & Design:
Jason Burgess Jonathan Gröger
Text:
Rebecca Loyche
Editing:
Rebecca Loyche Pamela Cohn
Printed by AZ Druck Berlin Print run: 1000 Paper:
antalis RC Offset 100 g/m² Berberich Allegro Picture half-matt 150 g/m²
ISBN 978-3-00-034545-6 Printed in Germany 180