Hyounsang Yoo

Work from Salmon / Yolk.

“I look to mass media as a starting point because it provides an outline of the socio-political landscape. I take the source, which is often a specific political and historical event. I then strip it from its context, leaving only the relationships between people, in individuality and as a group, and the event […] even when manipulated, my final images are still capable of triggering the memory of the viewers. However, because historical and political context is heterogeneous in space and time, each memory response is a function of where the viewer is from and what event is being portrayed. This work thus allows me to question how political and social differences in a globalized world shape our individual memory response.” – Hyounsang Yoo

Drew Nikonowicz

Work from This World and Others Like It.

“Functioning both as metaphor and exposition, Drew Nikonowicz’s series This World and Others Like It thrives in the growing chasm between reality and mediated fiction. Calling upon one of photography’s earliest uses—recording the vast, unexplored landscapes of the world—Nikonowicz brings forth a reality that is simultaneously uncanny and unknowable. The world we live in has been conquered and exhausted, his images seem to say, so we must turn to fictional or even extraterrestrial terrain instead.

While his monochromatic landscapes evoke awe of the sublime, something darker lurks in the crevices. The photographer draws on the language of nineteenth-century geographical surveys but presents a bleak twenty-first-century equivalent, where everything can be digitally rendered, and where measurements and numbers are the point of departure, not a goal of the endeavor. Through dark-hued landscapes and high-contrast portraits of rocks and shiny minerals, Nikonowicz not only calls into question the physical properties and realness of the earth’s building blocks, but also the way in which a distrust of images has become inherent to our experience of the world around us.

The only human figure represented in the series is the image of an astronaut, captured through a screen. Once the hero of the unknowable world, the space explorer has, like the photographer, become obsolete. As Nikonowicz writes, “Now the sublime landscape is only accessible through the boundaries of technology.” — Paula Kupfer

Josh Sender

Work from “Oy! On Time!”

“The digital objects and artworks made for Oy! On Time! were made as a pieces of a proposal for a solo show I wanted to have. Oy! On Time! was held in two parts: on the browser— where one can look privately, the weight of the work heavier, offering itself as more contemplative and private, and in a gallery space— as cheap xerox transfer prints, poor translations of a digital ideal.” – Josh Sender

Curators: Simone Neuenschwander and Thomas Thiel

Work by Neïl Beloufa, Juliette Blightman, Ryan Gander, Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, David Horvitz, Katja Novitskova, Metahaven, Yuri Pattison

“The ambivalence of a new visibility

The globalized world seems at once transparent and opaque. While modern life is characterized by a desire for more transparency in communication, politics and business, limitless access to information has eroded personal privacy, creating an ever-present, now long-running social dilemma. Despite the generally positive promise of transparency, there have been growing doubts about its impact on the community and on our understanding of the public sphere. A tremendous sense of insecurity can be felt at the level of private messaging, for example: while we value the free exchange of information on the Internet, we simultaneously oppose a surveillance society in which personal data is controlled by algorithms. The digital age brought a fundamental shift to cultural-historical notions of transparency.

„Transparencies“ examines the cultural facets and atmospheres of this (non-)transparency. The two-part, joint exhibition project in Bielefeld and Nuremberg is dedicated to developments in „transparent society,“ and asks how these are reflected in current work by contemporary artists. Participating artists deal with the paradigm of transparency and the ambivalence of the term in multiple, diverse ways. They examine the consequences of an algorithm- and data-collection-driven, life-world transparency and explore our changed relationship to privacy, or convey a critical approach to post-privacy society through strategies of refusal or deliberate disclosure of data. Other key points of investigation include interpersonal exchange and its possible control. Besides these effects of a progressive and media-expanded information age, the works examine the fundamental significance of presence and absence, the potential of revealing and concealing, and the handling of knowledge and ignorance within our society. The artists move between different fields in terms of subject matter, focusing on transparency as it relates to communication, politics, contemporary history, economics, sociology and (marine-)biology.

Simultaneous presentations in Bielefeld and Nuremberg reinforce the experience of transparency within the exhibition. Though all the artists have work in both places, they emphasize different thematic and spatial aspects of their work in the two venues. Both exhibition sites are linked not only in terms of content, but also through various media and artistic contributions. Information and works are deliberately withheld, for example, shown only in part or not even presented in the first place, so that the ambiguity of the exhibition’s topic can be felt at each, respective institution in relation to the other. The two, corresponding presentations not only emphasize their parallelism, but also shed light on the transitions between transparency and opacity, making them palpable for the viewer.

In the run-up to the exhibition, the graphic design studio Metahaven developed its own visual identity for „Transparencies“ with a family of logotypes that references and draws on corporate identities for so-called ‚transparent’ products such as clear varnishes or companies like Volkswagen. Considerations on the topic continue in the form of a symposium, a series of exhibition talks, workshops, and a shared project website. On the one hand, „Transparencies“ attempts to locate and update the phenomenon in cultural history, yet it also enables an understanding of the (borderline) experiences of this new visibility from a contemporary perspective. The project concludes with the publication of a comprehensive catalogue featuring texts by Emmanuel Alloa, Clare Birchall, Simone Neuenschwander, Manfred Schneider and Thomas Thiel.”

Zuzanna Czebatul

Work from A Gentleman’s Insult / A Gentleman’s Apology at Gillmeier Rech

“Pivotal Blast, an obelisk measuring over six meters, lies broken in the middle of the gallery space. In three pieces, it cuts a pathway from the rear of the space to the door. In Ancient Egypt, the obelisk, a monolithic pillar with a pointed crown, symbolized rays of the sun turned to stone and was erected in front of sacred temples as a protective edifce. Examples can still be found today in Rome, Cairo, and Istanbul, and in the 170-meter Washington Monument in the United States. In Czebatul’s exhibition, Pivotal Blast, an obelisk of plush, has toppled over, so that its tip does not point at the sky, but directly at the gallery entrance. Although collapsed, the sculpture – due to the architectural perfection and beauty of the Egyptian style – possesses a monumental aura. Thus, and particularly in the current context of the destruction of the temples in Palmyra, Syria, the exhibition unfolds a space, in which the signifcance of cultural heritage and Ancient architecture for the present day can be discussed.

The title A Gentleman’s Insult / A Gentleman’s Apology is a metaphor for loss of control, for failure, and dearth of decorum that lies over the scenario in the gallery space. Accordingly, Czebatul has bathed the foor in radioactive yellow and positions Pivotal Blast next to four fat works entitled Neuro Studies that are not mounted onto the wall but rather foat a little in front of it. These grid structures, molded in colored resin, draw on the tradition of spiritual windows while being very reminiscent of Modernist abstract forms. In the center of each picture, a black and white snapshot of naked bodies can be found. Here, photographic likeness is juxtaposed with abstraction, symbolizing the proximity between ornamentation and fguration. Essentially, A Gentleman’s Insult / A Gentleman’s Apology demonstrates Czebatul’s fascination with the relationship between art historical vocabulary and contemporary con- cepts of brittle perfection to form a single statement about our everyday material culture.”

Anne De Vries

Work form Submission at Cell Projects

“Inside the rst gallery De Vries pulls together the human psyche by exploding a head into a variety of architectural structures and representations alongside the technology we use to feed thought and communication. Live-streamed screens of global locations take us to far away places, from the congested streets of Times Square, New York City, to a tranquil bird watch in the South American jungle. Time zones are switched to accommodate the viewer’s desire. Each architectural make-shift shelter harbours conversations between a mediator, commissioned by Vries, to investigate and interview various representatives from special unrelated global institutions ranging from monasteries, shelters, detention centres, swingers clubs and meditation centres. Via a series of discussions and questioning, focusing on the philosophy and mission of each institution, the audio reveals a simulation of codes and rules, which seem to merge into one. Technology takes an anthropomorphic form and the audio gives shape to distinct places and states of mind that can potentially be entered and fade into each other. The caller’s phrases and vocabulary simulate into fragmented codes of arti cial intelligence where humans become part of the automated tools they use.”

Thomas Albdorf

Work from I Know I Will See What I Have Seen Before (Lodret Vandret).

“Looking at Austria and how it is constructed and constituted within a common image space, the concept of mountains, of an alpine landscape that functions as surface for multiple projections is prevalent; be it within the classic 1960s Heimatfilm, advertising, or political propaganda.

I Know I Will See What I Have Seen Before aims towards reconstructing and abstracting this mountainous visual space via various methods of image production, ranging from appropriated scanned material, digitally altered photographic images, studio settings etc., whilst also discussing the images’ productional circumstances. The works depart from their indexical referents, creating possibilities to become different images. One mountain can signify a different mountain, clouds can be petrified, water can become dust.” – Lodret Vandret

Safety Net @ Erratum Galerie.

“‘Safety Net’ – a juxtaposed term hinting at feeling safe inside a net, waiting for those who hold the strings to play out their next moves – is the title of Erratum Galerie’s show. The term might apply to characters that make up this exhibition too; as they all come of age in this space we call the art world.
Also trying to make their way in the Berlin art scene are the show’s young curators Nina Kettiger and David Hanes who have invited three artists to give their take on the “Safety Net”. The works presented here are very distinct and interpret the topic very differently. For instance, Per Mertens’s work, which literally cascades down the wall, makes the transition between wall and floor with a 3d rendered printed cloth that’s reminiscent of the Moon’s surface. Coincidentally, it was only last September when Nasa suggested there might be water on Mars. Mertens even entitled his work “On Survival Mode” thus bringing the ever-trending sci-fi ideology closer to our realities, proposing we can continue our “world” elsewhere.

Artist Annabelle Arlie uses found objects as if they were compressed artifacts of our modern western world. Her garish aesthetics are made up of oversized euro-bill-adorned calculators, faux rocks with built-in speakers and solar-panelled light-up owls. These have been turned into shrine like objects, with names such as “Black Energy” and “Rescue Kit”. The works seem at odds with their original intentions of offhand consumption and disposal in an act of western gluttony, now they seem to take on an unearthly power. Arlie has carefully considered the arrangement of these found objects, through colour, shape and motif. Anyone who’s ever dropped into a one-euro store can see the works are made up of the latest stock but the compositions resonate so strongly. As works, it’s hard to see the pieces as singular readymade item again, “netting” consumer consumption is Arlie response to the title it seems.

Heath West’s work has a more traditional feel to the topic of nets: four brightly coloured woven canvases hang across the gallery walls in hues of dark blues and neon pink and yellows. Seemingly confident and contained, these works become somewhat more complicated when you notice that the titles of each canvas is a song title from the American punk rock band the Misfits. Often seen as the progenitors of horror punk, the band have been synonymous with outcast teenagers throughout the world since the 90s.

Despite their difference in form, all the works explore the coming-of-age spirit in a post-internet world. Could this also nod at what happens to the pre-89 generation? They are not digital natives; they are the ones who shift between the old and new ways. They still remember the dial up sound of the internet before MSN opened, or their mums telling them to get off the internet in order to free the landline phone. But really we are all learning the rules and codes of the new elite world of the technological network. Smelling like teen spirit is perhaps just as relevant as it’s ever been.” – Victoria Rafferty

Corey Bartle-Sanderson

Work from HOMEWARE_update.

“How can we determine between artificiality and the actual world? What is ‘the model’ and what form does it take? Who can we trust?

The expectations of the spectator have shifted due to the conditions of digital processes and technology. Tools such as Photoshop, the iPhone and Tumblr are constantly accommodating a new language, through which images exist in a constant flow. The consequence of this concept is that the physicality of work is steadily depleted, and contexts are repeatedly re-appropriated. The assumption is that the image will be manipulated. My work plays with this assumption and seeks a balance between realism and surrealism, combining photography, sculpture and installation. My interests comprise digital and analogue processes equally, exploring how the real can replace digital and vice versa.

In the work, it is the photograph that becomes the conditioner of the experience, directing our view of the assemblages, becoming a means of producing two-dimensional objects obtaining a physical presence. The works placed in front of the camera favour the two-dimensional nature of the photograph, emphasising the impermanence of still-life photography that only exists in the documentation. However, sometimes the works escape the framework of the photograph, becoming sculptural and occupying a physical space.

The extension of the visual sense alters the way we think and act, the way we perceive the world, making us rethink about how an object looks. We know these objects too well, acquiring preconceptions on how things should look – how they would look if you Google them. As we see these things almost 24/7 they are accepted for how they look, we don’t think twice, or question. How do we know these aren’t just imitations of the real thing? where is the real? has it been made? Some objects are left to look handmade which can be seen up close, eventually ending this illusion. In this culture of digital liquidity everything is ceaselessly duplicated, shared, and disseminated. This idea is repeated in a new environment through old methods, imposing forms of the old on content of the new.” – Corey Bartle-Sanderson

Asha Schechter

Work from his oeuvre 

“I am interested in the lifespan of images. I am interested in how an image comes into being, what kind of work it does, how it ages, and when it stops being useful. I think of certain kinds of commercial 3D models as underemployed. The kind of models that on first blush make sense, but after further scrutiny are off in one way or another. These images have made their way into pictures, stickers, and videos I have been making, sometimes being put to sensible use, and sometimes floating in an indeterminate space, hoping that someday they might have something better to do.”

text via Charlotte Cotton’s Photography Is Magic