BQ

Ort: BQ bis: 2022-04-16

Künstler: Carina Brandes

Thema: CARINA BRANDES Exhibition 19.03.-16.04.2022 Carina Brandes’ works inhabit the interfaces between photography and painting. They avoid the painterly just as much as they steer clear of perfectionist cadrage. They are genuine, genre-less artworks. Consequentially, her works allow for a heightened sense of freedom, a playful engagement with depiction, situation, and movement, which bluntly points to what is amiss in both painting and photography: being unable to show what a thing really is. The black and white layered images in which the artist interrogates her own reflection linger on a threshold between different media. They never show anything in its complete and simple entirety but remain on the side, separated and fragmented. They become subtle spaces of reflection about the curious constitution of one’s own subjectivity. The exhibition at BQ follows the dramaturgy of a turn and, as such, inverts meanings and space: The word ‘END’ stands at the beginning, painted in black letters across the entire wall, repeated over and over. The large-format photographic floor piece situates ‘YES’ and ‘NO’ in a slow approach towards one another, turned upside down. In the last room, the mixing and mingling of images and text continues: here is the sole of a foot, as if one were standing right underneath it – behind it a mural iterates a self-referential system. ‘Presses’ becomes ‘messes’ becomes ‘looses’: declinations of a mysterious message. While its estimated sense can be felt, its meaning remains unintelligible. The gallery’s corridor, which is painted black, attracts visitors with a sense of urgency and leads them on to the next room with a feeling of uncertainty. Here, a photograph shows a kind of departure that is stuck to a fence: a suitcase with its contents scattered, a grid that cannot be overcome and again that heavy feeling of levitating a few centimeters above the ground, of being between things. In her works, Carina Brandes follows established photographic tropes and extends the vocabulary of the frozen moment with impressive skillfulness by the syllable of falling – an endless motion. Her works thus aim at dissolving an illusion by means of its specific anatomy: a falling body, the fragmented look onto the self. Other photographs by Carina Brandes do at times show photographic reproductions of her head, at times her entire silhouette. Her works feature projections of the female body, consisting of multiple exposures with anatomic longitudinal views. All of this appears like the exploded views of a giant hopelessness: of never being able to fully express, show or see oneself. Every now and then, a photograph replaces her head that has ducked out of view, sometimes she wears herself as a hat. A gesture immanent to her work is that of a staged photograph within a photograph. This is an ironic gesture which belongs to the topos of the juggler or the outsider: an alluring and liminal figure that walks the fine line between truth and illusion, between power and powerlessness. Here, the aesthetics of the break is faced with a humoristic (and playful) aspect of her artistic position, which amplifies that fundamental and processual character of her multi-layered works without having to fall back onto time-based media: everything remains mute, motionless, and focused. Everything consists of overlays and puzzle pieces, doll’s arms and other body parts become a collage that reveals naked fragility. The exhibition by Carina Brandes creates spaces, situations and images that do not seek to resolve what is contradictory, but instead somehow repeat it again and again. It is this (specific) mode of reproduction and representation in which a kind of presence that almost explodes becomes tangible. This presence lives in mere sketches and shapes, just as much as it inhabits a fundamental tension between photography, text, and movement. ‘Truenottruetruenottrue’. A moment for being in the in-between. CARINA BRANDES (born 1982 in Braunschweig, Germany) studied at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig in class of the artist Walter Dahn. Since 2013, she lives and works in Leipzig, Germany. For her artistic practice she received, among others, the Scholarship for Fine Art of the State of Lower Saxony, Germany, the working-Scholarship “Fürstenberg Zeitgenössisch“in Heiligenberg, Germany, and the Villa Romana Prize 2017 in Florence, Italy and Germany. Carina Brandes’s works, which range (in)between photography, installation and textual interventions, have been on display in numerous international exhibition venues – such as the MoMA PS1 in New York, NY, the Kunst Haus Wien in Austria, the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart in Germany or the Museum der Bildenden Künste Leipzig, Germany. Her photographs are part of the following art collections: the LBBW Collection of Landesbank Baden-Württemberg Stuttgart, Germany, the FRAC Haute-Normandie Collection in Rouen, France, or the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco. Text: Tobias Muno

Ort: BQ bis: 2021-11-27

Künstler: Mara Wohnhaas

Thema: Mara Wohnhaas “Rekommandeur” Exhibition: 31.08. - 30.10.2021 Mara Wohnhaas’ artistic practice can be visualised as a pendulum which swings between two poles: the artist’s biography and manifestations of the material. This image seems especially fitting because it lends a temporal and spatial frame to the different aspects of her work which cannot be taken in simultaneously. Since the pendulum never stops for long enough to give a necessarily more durational moment of insight, we are instead left with a focus on the vast in-between space which characterizes her art. The artist is gifted with the special skill of keeping insights into her biography, on the one hand, and into her artistic language, on the other hand, brief but effective. She attaches a sense of particularity and intensity, which one would not want to miss, to every impression, even if just for a brief second. Spectators find themselves in the position of a possible confidant around a shared secret which never becomes tangible but rather serves as an alluring key to what may follow. Similarly, the sculptures which Wohnhaas has installed in the space can be weighed in the hand just like keys. Even though this happens without touching them, physical closeness to the sculptures is generated via looking and implies possible functional uses of these objects. The branches, claws, fins, helmets etc. do not just seem to want to enmesh humans, they contain a vital human element in themselves. For BQ, Mara Wohnhaas has developed a spatial installation. Its individual components form a network of tense relations. The set contains a cubicle which, due to limited space, is reserved for the artist alone, a crane which rests on pointed limbs, as well as cylindrical deep freezers. A spoken word track, mixed with different audio layers, activates the installation, and transports it out of its stand-by mode. The spoken word format returns upon inspection of the deep freeze cylinders as frozen pages with text which are being conserved here. The scene is framed by posters depicting a collaged self-portrait of the artist – she assembles close-up images of her body in costume, turning them into ikons of deformed avatars. These images literally stand for Wohnhaas’ art: she dissects her thoughts and impressions alongside her chosen material and sends them on different routes, until they come together once again. The origin of the figurative constellation is based on a funfair ride. The funfair narrative is made explicit and places the artist in the role of the barker, an office for which she uses the cubicle. She highlights the comforting familiarity of the fair including the peaceful Sundays and makes the aesthetic nuances of the funfair’s audio-visual network available. Once the worn-out material has been shed, she reinscribes her world with the newly gained vocabulary. The moment in which the ride sets in motion is suspended, for now. Wohnhaas makes her announcements, present, yet with her back to the audience. She addresses a crane, encased in protective chequer plate with chains for buckling up attached to it, which has frozen in aggressive preparedness. While the barker would normally look out and comment on the movements of the guests, Wohnhaas uses the art of barking to insert a phantasy world into the exhibition space. The forces which spin bodies and organs around during the ride are powerless here. Nevertheless, people are being moved, and at this point let me return to the image of the pendulum. The switch between that which serves as a basis for the artist’s words and the presence and materiality of the sharp edges which the steel backdrop provides, has to be understood by visitors quickly and flowingly. Wohnhaas offers many things to spectators, but not for long. This way, we are still being shaken, searching for stability whilst falling under the spell of the barker. Mara Wohnhaas, born 1997 in Karlsruhe, studies at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the class of Rita McBride. This year, she was selected as a stipend holder of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. Jan-Luka Schmitz, 2021

Ort: BQ bis: 2021-05-22

Künstler: Cathy Wilkes

Thema: On the 31st of December in 2009, Cathy Wilkes’ work was last on view in Berlin at Giti Nourbakhsch gallery. Today she returns to Berlin with a sparsely furnished exhibition. She presents 7 flower motifs printed on thin paper; in two vitrines she sketches landscapes and narratives using historical photos, polaroid images, papier-mâché and mundane everyday objects. Linen cloth and egg tempera create an immediate illusionist depiction of a winter backdrop. The installation of the artworks appears discreet and vulnerable; some works are presented significantly below eye level, two glass objects rest on the gallery floor, withdrawing themselves from comfortable access via the visitor’s gaze. There is a lot of empty space between the objects. The gallery’s large, unveiled window panes create a genuine connection between the exhibits and everyday life on Rosa-Luxemburg-Square. The first impression of effortlessness is deceptive. The exhibits, created using a reduced range of means, were in fact produced with the utmost attention to detail, their components carefully chosen, reworked and refined several times - all in order to create things that appear silent and insignificant. Cathy Wilkes’ artworks pass through continuous processes of self-observation, questioning and exploration of personal and universal meaning - they are simultaneously perceived - as exactly what they are - as triggers for memories, fantasies, sorrows and fears. Cathy Wilkes lives and works in Glasgow. She was born in Belfast in 1966. In 2008, she was nominated for the Turner Prize and she was awarded with thebfirst Maria Lassnig Prize in 2017. Two years ago, she represented the UK at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019).

Ort: BQ bis: 2020-11-07

Künstler: David Shrigley

Thema:

Ort: BQ bis: 2020-08-22

Künstler: Dirk Bell, Alexandra Bircken, Leda Bourgogne, Carina Brandes, Matti Braun, Philipp Gufler, Owen Gump, Andrew Kerr, KRIWET, Jochen Lempert, Ruth Nemet, Bojan Sarcevic, David Shrigley, Marcus Steinweg, Raphaela Vogel, Cathy Wilkes, Richard Wright

Thema: ROHSTOFF POURQUOI is a show to which new artworks will be added every Sunday. The contributions will be announced via email.

Ort: BQ bis: 2020-05-23

Künstler: Bojan Sarcevic

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Ort: BQ bis: 2020-02-28

Künstler: Philipp Gufler

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Ort: BQ bis: 2019-12-19

Künstler: Carina Brandes

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Ort: BQ bis: 2019-11-30

Künstler: Jochen Lempert

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Ort: BQ bis: 2018-06-23

Künstler: Leda Bourgogne

Thema: The artistic practice of Leda Bourgogne (born 1989, Vienna) oscillates free-flowingly between different artistic media and combines influences from feminist theory, psychoanalysis, experimental film and literature. Embarking from Gilles Deleuze’s theory of the ‚body without organs’, her works build on the premise of non-existent identity. Before the background of a genderless interior perspective, the protagonists of her heterogeneous worlds transform autobiographical material into fiction. A large-scale installation made out of ‚Chewing Gum Poems‘ which have been trodden into the floor is the glue for Leda Bourgogne’s first solo show at BQ, a poetic terrain defined by sculpture, drawing, video and painting. 1. Chewing Gum Poems Spit-out chewing gum sticks to the gallery floor and walls, trodden in like on the street’s asphalt, where cleaning has long become pointless. Texts transform individual gums into speech bubbles, implying a secret message to the visitors. With its softness and colour, the synthetic material resembles a chunk of meat that has dried out on the floor over time. Chewing as effort and spitting as an act of demarcation – I like the straightforwardness that can be read into this gesture, a literal contact of the mouth and the gallery floor. I also like that the work is very close to ‚nothingness‘ at the same time. 2. Velvet-Ventilation-Paintings She etches dark velvet with active chlorine and perforates it with ventilation grids and holes that are then mended again. This painterly subtraction on the velvety skin of the works creates a transcendental formation without any use of actual applied paint. The works call to mind radiographic images and summon an uncanny depth. They feign a function, let the image breathe and permit a gaze behind the image: circulation of air, hygiene, wound, disinfection. 3. Backbone-CD-Sculptures The CD-rack sculptures are composed of modified ready-mades which have lost their original function over the past two decades due to the invention of MP3 technology. Transformed into totem-like figures with degenerated backbones and elevated bases, the sculptures act as guardians for the exhibited paintings. Their heads and speech organs are figures made of white modelling clay which are placed on their top ends, resembling teeth and tongues. They evoke the sculpture’s imagined ability to speak and to spit. The bended metal structure creates irritating twists and turns in the architecture of the body, alluding to a painful contortion. The backbone is a recurring motive in Leda Bourgogne’s works, because it transmits information and neural impulses to the brain through sensors in the spinal cord and hereby creates a bridge between sensuousness and perception. Leda Bourgogne recently graduated from the Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. She received the graduate price for her presentation at the degree show at MMK, Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt. Her works have been presented recently in solo and group shows, such as at Nassauischer Kunstverein (Wiesbaden), Vleeshal (Middelburg), Gärtnerstrasse (Wien).

Ort: BQ bis: 2018-04-14

Künstler: Dirk Bell, Alexandra Bircken, Leda Bourgogne, Carina Brandes, Matti Braun, Philipp Gufler, Owen Gump, Andrew Kerr, Kriwet, Friedrich Kunath, Jochen Lempert, Ruth Nemet, Bojan Sarcevic, David Shrigley, Marcus Steinweg, Raphaela Vogel, Reinhard Voigt, Cathy Wilkes, Richard Wright

Thema:

Ort: BQ bis: 2018-01-13

Künstler: Alexandra Bircken

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Ort: BQ bis: 2017-08-05

Künstler: k.A.

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Ort: BQ bis: 2017-06-24

Künstler: Matti Braun

Thema: Unter dem Titel Singale Sugat zeigt Matti Braun eine neue Werkgruppe bei BQ. Aus Versuchen mit pigmentiertem Beton entwickelt er flache, tableauartige Arbeiten. Der aus der Architektur stammende Werkstoff erfährt dabei eine alchemistische Umdeutung: aus dem gewöhnlich als massiv und kühl empfundenen Material erzeugt Braun unterschiedliche, feine Schichtungen. Diese erscheinen als abstrakte, wolkige Formationen auf den glatten Oberflächen der Arbeiten. Installativ eingesetzt entsteht durch die unzähligen Schattierungen zwischen schwarz und weiß für die Besucher ein malerischer Parcours. Verstärkt wird dieser Eindruck durch einen bodendeckend ausgelegten dunklen Splitt. Neben dem sanften Wiederstand beim Durchschreiten der Galerie ruft dieser durch die entstehenden Geräusche ganz unmittelbar die Assoziation einer Parklandschaft hervor. Erweitert um eine Gruppe abstrakter Skulpturen in Bronze, wirkt das Ensemble Brauns wie die bewusste Umkehrung der Verhältnisse zwischen Innen- und Außenraum. Philipp Fürnkäs, 2017

Ort: BQ bis: 2017-04-15

Künstler: Philipp Gufler

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Ort: BQ bis: 2017-03-11

Künstler: Marcus Steinweg

Thema: Gäste Felix Ensslin Thomas Hirschhorn Bethan Huws Marcellvs L. Rosemarie Trockel Vorträge 17.02.2017, 20 Uhr Felix Ensslin 10.03.2017, 20 Uhr Marcus Steinweg Für seine dritte Einzelausstellung bei BQ hat Marcus Steinweg drei großformatige sowie eine Anzahl kleinformatiger Diagramme realisiert. Allen Arbeiten gemeinsam ist das Vorhandensein von Text. Steinweg arbeitet an der künstlerischen Visualisierung seiner philosophischen Position. Selbst verfasste Textblöcke wie einzelne Begriffe werden in ein diagrammatisches Verhältnis zueinander gesetzt. Es geht um die Verdeutlichung der Komplexität philosophisch-künstlerischer Reflexion und um ihre formale Reduktion zu zeichnerischen Schemata. Dabei steht die Kommunikation mit anderen philosophischen Positionen ebenso im Mittelpunkt wie der langjährige Dialog mit den Künstler/innen Thomas Hirschhorn, Bethan Huws, Marcellvs L. und Rosemarie Trockel, die jeweils mit einer Arbeit in der Ausstellung vertreten sind. Die Ausstellung wird durch zwei philosophische Vorträge von Felix Ensslin und Marcus Steinweg ergänzt. Marcus Steinweg, geb. 1971, lebt und arbeitet als Philosoph und Künstler in Berlin. Er war Gastprofessor an der HfBK Hamburg und lehrt augenblicklich an der Universität der Künste Berlin. Zu seinen Publikationen zählen u. a. „Duras“ (mit Rosemarie Trockel, Berlin: Merve 2008), „Politik des Subjekts“ (Zürich / Berlin: Diaphanes 2009), „Aporien der Liebe“ (Berlin: Merve 2010), „Kunst und Philosophie / Art and Philosophy“ (Köln: Walter König: 2012), „Evidenzterror“ (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz 2015), „Gramsci Theater“ (Berlin: Merve 2016) und „Splitter“ (Berlin: Matthes & Seitz 2016). Einige seiner Bücher erscheinen 2017 in englischsprachiger Übersetzung bei The MIT Press. Seine Arbeiten wurden unter anderem präsentiert im Centre Pompidou Metz; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Kunstverein Arnsberg; Kunsthalle Kiel; Kunstverein Bielefeld; Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld. Seit 2011 kuratiert Marcus Steinweg die philosophische Reihe „Überstürztes Denken“ im Roten Salon der Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin.

Ort: BQ bis: 2016-12-17

Künstler: Ruth Nemet

Thema:

Ort: BQ bis: 2016-10-29

Künstler: Dirk Bell

Thema:

Ort: BQ bis: 2016-08-06

Künstler: “Augury” is a show about reading, featuring Shane Anderson, Hannes Bajohr, Marisa Benjamim, Barbara E. Borg, Bruce Conner, Black Cracker, Selin Davasse, Jay DeFeo, Adam Fearon, Michael Franz, Michael Hakimi, Natalie Häusler, John Holten, Konrad Klapheck, Peter König, Elise Lammer, Jochen Lempert, Luci Lippard, Jannis Marwitz, Jonathan Monk, Joel Mu, Aérea Negrot, Vera Palme, Damon Sfetsios, Barbara Spiller and Angela Stiegler, Caique Tizzi, Raphaela Vogel, Mundi Vondi and Karl Homqvist, Cathy Wilkes, Richard Wright

Thema:

Ort: BQ bis: 2016-06-25

Künstler: Jochen Lempert

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Ort: BQ bis: 2015-04-16

Künstler: David Shrigley

Thema: Vom 11. März bis zum 16. April zeigt BQ eine Einzelausstellung von David Shrigley (*1968) Einem breiten Publikum zunächst durch seine Zeitungscartoons, Bücher und Animationen bekannt, ist David Shrigley nach insti-tutionellen Einzelschauen etwa im Aspen Art Museum (2007), dem Museum Ludwig in Köln (2008), der Londoner Hayworth Gallery (2012), der Pinakothek der Moderne, München (2014), oder zuletzt der National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne im Kontext der zeitgenössischen Kunst ebenso präsent, wovon auch seine Nominierung für den Turner Prize 2014 oder die Beauf-tragung mit der Gestaltung des „Fourth Plinth“ auf dem Trafalgar Square in London zeugen. Wie für seine vergangenen beiden Ausstellungen in BQs Berliner Galerieräumen hat Shrigley auch für die aktuelle Präsentation ein Neonobjekt konzipiert. Im Fenster, gleich neben dem Eingang platziert, verkündet es dem Besucher noch vor dem Betreten der Galerie „NO WIFI“. Auf typisch lakonische Manier bringt uns Shrigley zum Schmunzeln über Verhaltensweisen, in denen wir uns selbst erkennen. So kann die Arbeit als ironischer Kommentar auf unsere oft vom Smartphone getaktete oder vergeudete Zeit verstanden werden, als Infragestellung unserer Bewertungsmaßstäbe, zugleich aber auch als Hinweis auf das mancherorts verstaubte Image von Kunst und Ausstellungsbetrieb – wenn nicht gar als auf die Spitze getriebener „Retro“-Hype. In den Galerieräumen zeigt der Künstler eine umfangreiche Ausstellung von Bleistiftzeichnungen – eine traditionelle Kunst-gattung, die wie logisch auf die Warnung vor dem nicht vorhandenen WiFi folgt. In gewohnt brillanter Schärfe präsentieren die Arbeiten absurde Situationen des Alltags und wählen banale Objekte als Sujet des Kunstwerks. Die bewusst wie unbeholfene Krakeleien ausgeführten und teilweise mit Streichungen und Übermalungen von „Fehlern“ versehenen Zeichnungen spiegeln dabei das humorvoll inszenierte Moment des Scheiterns, das unsere Kommunikation, unsere Beziehungen zu Mitmenschen und Dingen (NO WIFI) allzu oft zu kennzeichnen scheint. Zur Ausstellung erscheint eine Publikation.