“In the past, RALF ZIERVOGEL has been known for his sharply detailed, imploding and exploding apocalyptic drawings in outsized and mini formats. The spatial installation “Equilibrist” is inserted into the given space - the former chapel of Bethanien Hospital and now Studio 1 of the Künstlerhaus - in a strict, minimalist way. An almost corporeal "UD" model construction (2007, 384 x 150cm, mixed media), the striking apparatus under grey tarpaulin, and a blind spot, deep black and matt - pure black ivory -, are located in the apse. The room reflects an arena as object space. There is distance to everything. Randomly, the tent interior rushes outwards to create plastic forms. Bud Spencer and Achilles seem to be standing on a tortoise. The black hole in the apse represents the drawing together of interior space, the opposite of the tent. The question of outside and inside, of the causal agent, of the empty space of a higher being is posed without pathos.” (Peter Lang, curator)

“Equilibrist” is being realised with kind support from the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Senate Offices – Cultural Affairs.

NICO DOCKX, together with the artist HELENA SIDIROPOULOS, will be presenting a specially conceived poster in Studio 240 on 17th January; this shows a reproduced image from each of the artist’s personal archives and is therefore an illustration of two personal standpoints rather than an ‘artwork’. It will be distributed among visitors on the spot.

OPEN STUDIOS: The following artists will be opening their studios to the public from 7 pm on 17th January 2008, and look forward to your visit: Can Altay (Turkey), Daniel Barroca (Portugal), Catherine Bolduc (Canada), Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson (Iceland), Markus Degerman (Sweden), Nico Dockx (Belgium), Hadassah Emmerich (Netherlands), Haris Epaminonda (Cyprus), Nathalie Latham (Australia), Moonjoo Lee (Republic of Korea), An Te Liu (Canada), Søren Lose (Denmark), Charlotte Schleiffert (Netherlands), Martin Skauen (Norway), Sophia Tabatadze (Georgia), Luca Trevisani (Italy) and Ming Wong (Singapore).

+ from 9 pm in the foyer: DJ Christoph Tannert!

MOONJOO LEE works with painting and collage techniques. Many years ago in her home city Seoul, she began documenting its omnipresent areas of urban renewal - the so-called “redevelopment sites” - in photographs and painting, and she has retained this practice to the present day. Since then, the transitory nature of urban landscapes has constituted a key topic in her work, as well as the related question of the social consequences of this kind of redevelopment; for many people, it can mean exclusion and the loss of their homes. Moonjoo Lee’s large-format, serial works – most of them diptychs and triptychs – reveal the artist’s perspective on the continuing cycle of urban expansion, construction, decay, demolition and reconstruction, and always require site-specific research. To equal degrees, they reflect the past, present and future. In Berlin, too, Moonjoo Lee has discovered sections of the urban landscape in a state of upheaval and has brought these together in painterly collages on canvas. The photos that she produces first, as “shadows of reality” (Lee), function as patterns for large-format black and white copies or silkscreen prints, which Lee arranges on the canvas in a patchwork-like fashion and finally works over or supplements using layers of brushed paint. Moonjoo Lee not only intends her works as documentation of the daily changing space of our direct environment, she also aims to stimulate a metaphorical understanding of this space as one of values and possibilities.

Moonjoo Lee holds a grant from the Arts Council Korea, Seoul within the context of our International Studio Programme.

Moonjoo Lee – Urban Detritus
18th January – 3rd February 2008, Studio 2

NICO DOCKX’ works often constitute his response to found texts, images or architectonic structures. In many cases, he works together with other artists, musicians or even scientists, since his aesthetic practice develops in conjunction with and relation to others. Nico Dockx’ work is inspired by a fundamental interest in structural processes and archives. His installations, sound settings, published texts and videos examine the interrelations of perception and memory and create space for many individual interpretations.
Dockx has realised “Untitled” in Studio 3 together with the London artist and writer DOUGLAS PARK. It is part of a series begun in 2003, which aims to investigate institutional structures and identities. A series of slides with images and texts documents an exhibition in Bologna that has never been shown to the public. It comprises works and performances that have left traces behind in a building now standing empty after the inauguration of a new art museum – a rather eerie ‘group exhibition’ and at the same time a reflection on past, present and future, potential ideas of what constitutes an art museum.
Nico Dockx holds a fellowship from the government of Flanders, Brussels, within the context of our International Studio Programme.

Nico Dockx & Douglas Park – Untitled (Studio 3)
18th January – 3rd February 2008

Nico Dockx & Helena Sidiropoulos – Untitled (Studio 240)
17th January 2008