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panel, Benhelima built up a personal document,
an 'anti-archive' of non labeled images of conflicted identities
which contradictorily are meant to be confounded. To increase
the disorientation and underline his statement, Benhelima added
light to the portraits, which instead of enhancing and shining
people's look, fades away the details of their visages. For
Benhelima, this effect is related to the complexity of the identities
which sometimes end up to disappear and also to blur the memory
of people from our childhood - as the artist's own mother -
or made up images of family members he does not remember or
never saw - as Benhelima's father and his side of the family.
In addition, the Polaroid's are displayed in two layers (a division
between two groups: Jews [here comprised the Arab-Jews] and
Arabs), which is not noticed from far but from a close distance
- a reference to the invisible wall that separates people.
Semitics. 25th Nov - 11th Dec 2005, Wed - Sun, 2 - 7 pm, Studio
3 - Opening: Thu, 24th. Nov 2005, 7 pm
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Charif Benhelima’s
artistic discipline is photography, and his strategy is to plumb
its limitations. His artistic practice is inspired by his own
biography and family background: in his photographic work he
focuses on what it means to be 'a foreigner', and investigates
in notions of 'home' in a world of ongoing globalization and
at the same time, of a phenomenon as is the "Fortress Europe".
Charif Benhelima has been working for some time on the series
Semitics, one piece of which he will show in Studio 3. The work
consists of a panel composed of 135 Polaroids organized in two
layers. Mixing reproductions of portraits and live portraits
of Jews, Arabs, Sephardic Jews and himself on a |
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Ján Mancuska,
who is representing the Czech Republic at this year’s
Biennale in Venice along with two other artists, has been working
for some time now by using simple, everyday objects in the tradition
of Arte Povera, but combines this form with a specifically Eastern
European development of conceptual art in which language acquires
a highly spatial significance. Mancuska frequently employs word
sequences, strings of text or threads of narration to break
familiar linguistic categories by subjecting the viewer to a
sensuous experience of space.
Jan Mancuska’s installation in Studio 2 tells the true
story of a woman named Eva, who apparently finally left her
partner because he had the enervating habit of tilting the television
ninety degrees sideways so that he had a better view of the
screen when stretched out on the couch lying on his side. However,
Mancuska is not satisfied with the narrative alone. He forces
the visitor into a kind of three-dimensional storyboard. Members
of the public have to hurry from couch to couch in this installation,
in order to follow the action sequence by sequence as it comes
out of the monitors in voice-over fragments.
In this way, the narrative becomes an experiment in spatial
(and artistic) perception, in which the spoken language becomes
a spatial challenge for the viewer.
home
alone. 25th Nov - 11th Dec 2005, Wed - Sun, 2 - 7 pm, Studio
2- Opening: Thu, 24th. Nov 2005, 7 pm |
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Painter Ahmed Motiee, born in Iran and now
living in Bremen, unfurls a kaleidoscope of stories for the
viewer, who reads in the paintings as if in an opened book.
Motiee’s special processing technique not only lends them
haptic plasticity. It also reconciles both tradition and the
present day, and political analysis and calligraphic beauty.
25th - 27. Nov and 2nd - 4th Dec .2005, Studio 242, Fr - Sun,
2 - 7 pm - Opening: Thu, 24th Nov 2005, 7 pm |
Within the framework of the "First Cultural
Festival of Serbia and Montenegro" in Germany 2005, the
Künstlerhaus Bethanien is presenting the group exhibition
"Montenegrin Beauty", contemporary art from Montenegro.
Twelve artists from Montenegro will display numerous works dealing
with a cliché that is ubiquitous in their homeland: the
beauty of the country, its natural abundance and the opulence
of the history of its civilisation. This beauty is seen to be
God-given, and hence irrevocable. The artists, born between
1950 and 1976, confront the
omnipresence of this almost mystical glorification with their
artistic interventions, critically challenging clichés
of this nature.
With Ozana Brkovic, Vesko Gagovic, Roman Ðuranovic, Irena
Lagator, Jovan Mrvaljevic, Suzana Pajovic Zivkovic, Milija Pavicevic,
Lazar Pejovic, Igor Rakcevic, Nikola Simanic, Jelena Tomaševic,
Natalija Vujoševic.
Montenegrin Beauty - Contemporary Art from Montenegro - 25th
November - 18th December 2005, Wed - Sun, 2 - 7 pm, Opening:
Thu, 24th Nov 2005, 7 pm |
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