Something Must Breakis based between Istanbul and Milan and is a research project by Monia Ben Hamouda and Michele Gabriele that investigates “Distances, Narratives and Feelings.”
An exhibition of painting, sculpture, video and installation, the curatorial premise “fantasizes the cultural aftermath of the colonization of Mars,” where current politics and geographies are explored through non-linear narrative within both the physical and present-day realities of inhabiting Earth as well as the desire for a Martian landscape. The press included a text by Andy Heckboyd that reads:
We are all together, like one big head. Floating over the land like a balloon. Each line-in to the central heart. It’s located in the nose. The thing that was figured out on Earth was how to use the internet to connect everyone to everything. The data would be useful. A big head on Mars. Is full of many different people, in individual unity.
Group exhibition, No Need to Hunt – We Just Wait for the Roadkill curated by Paul Barsch brought together the work of eight artists at Dresden’s S T O R E from September 26 to October 10, 2015. Inanimate sculptures and objects sit quietly in conversation with one another; their potential power as vehicles of speech feels fragile and self aware. The accompanying text, and this segment in particular, is integral to the reading of the exhibition:
/fresh meat with zero exhaustion/ is not exactly true, at least it shouldn’t be. Immaterial labour is real labour and going beyond just looking and repeating requires precision and focus. Laid back is fine, but remember, I scroll too and I can see if you’ve been lazy; in fact, I want to see you exhausted. But in the back of our minds, always: how fresh is this roadkill anyway?
The show’s installation photos capture Kai Hügel‘s ‘Iced Herbs’ as they begin to thaw. LED lights and various vietnamese herbs emerge from within the frozen casing. A light leak begins to permeate the floor, moistening Dorota Gaweda & Eglé Kulbokaité‘s deteriorating aubergine skins. Dotted at random around the room and dissected in half, the vegetables lay splayed out over a hashtag text piece stuck to the floor that reads “CaptiveCEOsToBeReturnedToTheWild”. Michele Gabriele‘s ‘SHITTY-SLIPPY-SLUTTY (A beautiful and dangerous night)’, sits firmly in relation to the rest of the light and somewhat ephemeral works. The crystallised body sits somewhere between a rock formation you might see in a cave and an oversized piece of quartz used for spiritual healing. The pigment mixes with the surrounding moisture, dying the floor blue and purple. Protruding from the side, a PREDATOR knife sticks out from the sculpture’s gut.
Similar in size and shape, Burkhard Beschow‘s ‘Holes’ feels skeletal in relation. Wire, metal parts and cloth are tangled in a violent mess. The letter ‘E’, among other unidentifiable pieces of debris, is suspended in some sort of barbed wire trapping. Jake Kent‘s ‘Dropping the A Bomb’ and ‘Hanging out in someone else’s puddle’ pile political slogans in a heap on the floor. Silk screen patches yelling “DESTROY EVERYTHING” and “KILL YOUR INNER COP” are sewn into the digital prints and silk viscose velvet. The handmade tassels have a tender quality, bringing to mind the lengthy and invested form of obscure labour within activism. Alexander Endrullat‘s ‘Unibody’ places a MacBook on a step and in safe distance from the damp floor. Plugged in and fully charged, it has been permanently welded shut and rendered a completely useless object.
On the other side of the room, a printed text winds around a roll of toilet paper by Camilla Steinum. With some difficulty, bits and pieces can be read: “Dirt comes out via the mouth…again and again unprocessed and embarrassing…trying to find meaning…the words, worlds.” The print feels strongly connected to the accompanying text, stringing the exhibition together by a thread of poetic-manifesto styled musings.**
For the duration of the Margit Säde-curated exhibition, Konstanet will be moving into the space and operating out of its exhibition space while remaining open to the public, thereby making what normally remains behind the scenes visible to the general public. The artists involved include Rafaël Rozendaal, Alex Cecchetti, Esther Mathis and Hanne Lippard among others.
Over the seven-week programme, Konstanet will host three different events: an introductory talk on November 27, the opening of Michele Gabriele‘s new exhibition followed by an artist talk on December 12, and the opening of Maximilian Schmoetzer‘s new show, also followed by an artist talk, taking place on January 8.