Hibernation

Linda Kuhn and
Alvaro Urbano

Opening
01/19/2018, 7pm

Welcome
Sabine Weißler,

District Councillor for Education, Culture, Environment, Nature, Street and Green Areas

About the exhibition
Julia Heunemann
and Nadia Pilchowski

Duration of the exhibition
01/20/2018 – 03/10/2018

Accompanying program

Sun 03/04/2018 at 3pm
›Maloota‹ – Performance by Michel Voolta

During hibernation, the Berlin city bears were rarely seen in their outdoor enclosures. They mostly slept, were fed only inside the bear pit out of public view, and freed from their representative role. Periods of rest in which physiological processes shut down, mental tension subsides and where consciousness shifts between vague perception and purposeless actions, are disharmonious with neoliberal performance orientation.

“Hibernation” presents artistic positions which examine those conditions and effects of temporary withdrawal.

In her previous works, Linda Kuhn has addressed the withdrawal from goal-orientated action. In the outdoor enclosures of the bear pit, which align physical distance with comprehensive visibility, the Berlin-based artist obstructs the visitors’ views. With protective cladding for sculptures, she creates retreats for the elements found within the enclosures, and in the process, ascribes to them new plastic qualities.

By means of architectural interventions that circumvent habitual perceptual patterns, Alvaro Urbano deconstructs relations between inside and outside, dream and reality. Considering hibernation, he suspends the bear cages from their intended use and focuses on the imaginary potential of their immured and barred architecture. The question then of what bears dream about ultimately reflects hibernation itself as a space of the imaginary.

Curated by
Julia Heunemann
and Nadia Pilchowski

The works of Linda Kuhn focus on the possibility of withdrawing from common work and time structures. Sculpturally, she examines current leisure habits and questions how physical activities are reproduced in this context.

Born 1983 in Berlin, Linda Kuhn has exhibited her works in Berlin (SOS, Luftraum, Humboldt Carré, Kunstquartier Bethanien), London (Oxo Tower, Triangle Space) and Vienna (Kunsthalle Exnergasse) in recent years.

In 2015, she received the Goldrausch Scholarship (Berlin), and last year was invited to attend the Leisure Studies Association Conference in Leeds, UK.

Alvaro Urbano, born 1983 in Madrid, Spain, lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the Architecture School in Madrid and completed his Master Studies at the Institut für Raumexperimente, Olafur Eliasson Class, Universität der Künste, Berlin. In 2014 Urbano received the Villa Romana Fellowship. He attended the The Artists and Architects-in-Residence at MAK, Los Angeles, 2016/2017.

Solo projects include: Altbau, ChertLüdde, Berlin, 2017; Almost Midnight, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, 2017; Assemble, performance night, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, 2017; I, Mole Antonelliana, Turin, in collaboration with The National Cinema Museum of Turin, 2016.

Group exhibitions include: Alpina Huus, Geneva and Lausanne, 2017; Festival of Future Nows II, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 2017; Notes on our equilibrium, CAB, Brussels, 2017; That Time, Cycle Music and Art Festival, Iceland; Deep Inside, Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Moscow, 2016; Art and Nature: Walking with Senses, Merano, 2016.

›Maloota‹ by Michel Voolta

Sun 03/04/2018 at 3pm
Köllnischer Park

Since 2010, the artist group Michel Voolta has been working mainly with video and performance. Last year they worked in the format of a choir. Michel Voolta’s record ›Aber jetzt… denn Lieder bewirken viel‹ will be released on Smareazy in March 2018.

The name ›Berlin‹ stems from Slavic ›br’lo‹, meaning marsh. The Berlin Baer is a so-called ›speaking crest‹, which tries to produce the sound of a symbol in the German language. Symbols on shields [to protect against attacks] were initially personal. Over time, they became hereditary and transferred from one generation to the next. After the emergence of stronger armor with face covering they served the recognition of the knights in the war turmoil. This military function then disappeared again with the advent of firearms [i.e. fighting over long distances], the coat of arms became a pure object of symbolism.

Thus, the private person does not appear, as if he/she did not exist at all. And what did the servants wear?

›The lacing of the doublet is clear. Buttons were banned for workers in the middle ages, so lacing was the tradition among the lower classes long after the law had passed into history. To let the lining of the knee breeches show had been the fashion in 1666, but here it is still being worn in the 1690s. A few buttons on the sleeve, however, show a slow trend towards aping the aristocracy‹

[Diana de Marley, Working Dress – A History of Occupational Clothing, London, 1986]