Sophia Tabatadze is concerned with political and social events that lead to change – often radical and sudden – in the life circumstances of those people affected. Above all, she documents and reflects on those changes that have been experienced by the inhabitants of her home country Georgia in the recent phase of its chequered history. Tabatadze’s artistic strategy is the inversion of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’: photos of house facades become interior decoration, images of human organs are combined to create a trendy wallpaper pattern, and a cosily furnished apartment is displayed behind transparent Perspex in a manner that is anything but cosy. Full of fine irony, Tabatadze’s installations, video works and performan-
ces recount the discrepancy between form and content, facade and interior – in short: the discrepancy between “semblance” and “being” that is a permanent reality in our world. Although Tabatadze’s works usually examine her home country, they nevertheless lay claim to universal validity. Their point of reference, the artist’s main interest, is the ‘condition humaine’ in our global village.
In “All My re-Collections” at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Sophia Tabatadze displays collections of everyday things that she gathered during different phases of her life. Usually, these would serve as starting points for Taba-
tadze’s artistic work, but here the inconspicuous objects themselves become the theme of the presentation,
so revealing the process that leads to the genesis of an artwork.
Sophia Tabatadze is a current guest at Künstlerhaus Bethanien thanks to the Eastern Europe Fellowship awarded by the Schering Foundation, Berlin. (Information: http://www.scheringstiftung.de)

Sophia Tabatadze – All My re-Collections
28th November – 14th December 2008, Studio 3
Opening Thursday, 27th November 2008, from 7 pm

Pia Lindman’s creative work belongs to the tradition of minimalist performance and collective art, with a particular focus on the inherent performative aspect
of art production. Starting out from site-specific conventions and customs, Lindman investigates social, political and economic conditions.
Lindman describes her latest project, “Herr Puntila – spiritual journeys”, as a “participatory performance, video and drawings which relate to drinking, Wuolijoki and Brecht” and makes the visitors into protagonists and the most important component of the work.
The starting point for the project is the well-known play “Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti”, which Bertolt Brecht wrote together with the eminent Finnish dramatist Hella Wuolijoki in 1940, while exiled in Finland. It is about the rich, powerful but mean farmer Puntila, who treats his fellow human beings terribly and bullies them when sober. However, when he is drunk and faced by the majestic beauty of nature, he lapses into an almost ecstatic state of “spiritual cognition” and love for his fellow men. The play has many diverse aspects, but Lindman is interested in the specific Finnish drinking culture, considered remarkable even in Finland, which aims for a loss of control through intoxication - as the basic prerequisite for extreme stimulation that can lead, e.g. when simultaneously confronted by the beauty and sublime quality of nature, to an almost shamanic experience.

Pia Lindman – Herr Puntila-spiritual journeys
28th November – 14th December 2008, Studio 2
Opening Thursday, 27th November 2008, from 7 pm

The exhibition Tellefsen / Voigt / Ziervogel (curator: Christoph Tannert) in Künstlerhaus Bethanien's
Studio 1 represents a fresh tour of discovery looking for a definition of principles within the graphical cosmos.
Drawing takes on many roles and is accompanied
by a range of anecdotes. It can supplement painting or sculpture as a preliminary study, but it may also appear as an autonomous work of art or an instrument of experimental research.
The graphic medium has another elementary significance for Andreas Tellefsen, Jorinde Voigt and Ralf Zier-
vogel: they appreciate the nakedness of the drawing and the act of drawing, which highlights their position within their own lifetime. Every drawing, every series of drawings belongs alongside another. Nothing emerges as a self-contained system, and yet it stands alone. Nothing amounts to a narrative of development, and yet one thing progresses logically towards the other – with temporal sovereignty and within an everyday constellation that we view with amazement, somewhere in a previously undiscovered galaxy.
Andreas Tellefsen (*1976 in Norway), Jorinde Voigt (*1977 in Frankfurt am Main) and Ralf Ziervogel (*1975 in Clausthal-Zellerfeld) live and work in Berlin.

An exhibition catalogue (G/E) will be published, including texts by Knut Ebeling and Hans-Jürgen Hafner.
Exhibition and catalogue are being realised with generous support from the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Senate Office - Cultural Affairs.

Andreas Tellefsen / Jorinde Voigt / Ralf Ziervogel
28th November – 14th December 2008, Studio 1
Opening Thursday, 27th November 2008, from 7 pm