meeting with the other as such, but still

Natalie Czech und
Mirjam Thomann

Opening
11/15/2018, 7pm

Welcome
Judith Laub
Programme Director Urban Culture and Cultural Education,
Department Arts and Culture, Bezirksamt Mitte von Berlin

About the exhibition
Nandita Vasanta and
Christopher Weickenmeier

Exhibition
11/16/18 – 01/27/19

Accompanying program
Fr, 01/18/2019, 3 – 9pm

Workshop with Natalie Czech, Mirjam Thomann, curators and guests

Marking the end of the current exhibition programme, “meeting with the other as such, but still”follows possible lines of flight. A paradox, it seems, considering that a multitude of border mechanisms separate the exhibition site from the outside world and the Bärenzwinger’s individual areas from each other. The artists Natalie Czech and Mirjam Thomann, alternatively search for the hidden spaces within a space. The kind that only unfold in the encounter with the other as an experience of difference.

In her works, Mirjam Thomann explores the often invisible connections between space, bodies and the subject. Considering the Bärenzwinger’s opening to the public, Thomann reflects on the hidden conditions for accessibility in her newly created sculptural series “Little Life”.

Thomann’s interventions are prosthetic extensions of the space and its narratives, always referring visitors back to the immediate physical dimension of their subjective spatial experiences.

In her series “Negative Calligrammes”, the artist Natalie Czech addresses the relationship between image and writing.

The photos show emails from authors who wrote their texts around blank spaces that in turn were fixed by Czech beforehand. Text and image appear because of each other, yet stand for themselves. Through this encounter, Czechs’ images open up a poetic space for the visitors, in which the question of meaning constitutes an aesthetic experience itself.

Curated by
Nandita Vasanta and
Christopher Weickenmeier

Natalie Czech (born 1976) lives and works in Berlin. She has presented solo exhibitions at Heidelberger Kunstverein, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Kunstverein Hamburg, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Ludlow 38, New York; Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf; Kadel Willborn, Düsseldorf; and Captain Petzel, Berlin; among others.

Recent group exhibitions include Kunsthalle Hamburg, Sprengel Museum, Hannover; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Kunsthalle Bremen; Kunsthalle Wien; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; Kunsthaus Bregenz. She has received numerous awards and grants, including, in 2014, the Villa Romana Prize.

Mirjam Thomann is an artist living in Berlin. Her installations combine sculptures with text, construction materials with flesh colours, everyday objects with ceramics, and art historical references with feminist theory.

Her focus is centred around the architectural and institutional nature of a place, particularly the exhibition space.

Her works have been exhibited at Galerie Nagel Draxler in Berlin and Cologne, Casco in Utrecht, Kunstverein Hamburg and Kunstverein Arnsberg, After the Butcher in Berlin, Galerie Krobath in Vienna, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei and at MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles.

She writes for “Texte zur Kunst” and is currently Professor of Fine Arts/Plastics at Kunsthochschule Kassel.