CHUA CHYE TECK is a passionate collector of images, memories and spaces. He takes photographs of the visible and with them he indicates things invisible. His work is inspired by the conflicting field of spatial and social relations within specific, generally urban surroundings; it is a matter of people, their actions with respect to the space they occupy, inhabit or merely cross briefly. In his Berlin pictures, Teck portrays the vitality of the city and shows that life surrounds us everywhere – even in places where there are no people or other living creatures. The artist believes that the spirit of history can be sensed in many places here and that small, everyday 'legacies' of human activity combine to create an impression of the city's dynamic "being-inhabited". Teck is especially intrigued by the simple things: people's everyday actions, the way in which things are done, rituals and routines, streetscapes and landscape, all the traces of human existence, however tiny. As all this varies from one culture and continent to the next, Chua Chye Teck has made it his task to develop parallels and differences in his photographs and to highlight unique qualities.
The Berlin series "City Landscape" being presented in the Künstlerhaus comprises more than 30 photographs. Chua Chye Teck uses them to teach the viewer that everyday things may be full of surprise and humour and enables him to take a brief look behind the city’s only apparently rigid facade.

Chua Chye Teck currently holds a fellowship from the National Arts Council, Singapore in the context of our International Studio Programme.

Chua Chye Teck - "City Landscape"
23rd July - 8th August 2010
Tuesday - Sunday, 2 - 7 pm
Opening: Thursday, 22nd July 2010, from 7 pm
Gallery spaces at Kottbusser Straße 10

ANDRÉ ROMÃO's works usually develop from his research into a specific historical or literary situation. He expands its levels of meaning by working on the widest possible spectrum of sources and references and re-assembling them in a fresh way in the context of his work. Thus Romão’s works are always collages – in the direct or figurative sense. His latest work "The Vertical Stage" offers a fresh way of reading authentic events that took place in Mexico City - both the murder of peaceful demonstrators by the Bataillon Olímpia in October 1968, which became known as the "Night of Tlatelolco", and the Olympic Summer Games that were realised according to plan shortly afterwards. Romão develops this alternative interpretation by combining documentary material of the Mexican events with cleverly chosen elements from Homer's "Iliad" and Antonin Artaud's "Theatre of Cruelty" and leading attention away from the historic reporting to the human aspect; to the exemplary individual in the collective process of history. Thus, the Olympic Games are interpreted in the sense of a collective, symbolic but unconscious act of performance: an historical "re-enactment", a drama, acting out a specific event in the nature of a format for the stage.
André Romão holds a grant from the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon and is a guest at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in the context of our International Studio Programme.

André Romão - "The Vertical Stage"
23rd July - 8th August 2010
Tuesday - Sunday, 2 - 7 pm
Opening: Thursday, 22nd July 2010, from 7 pm
Gallery spaces at Kottbusser Straße 10

DANIEL BEERSTECHER is showing his video work "50°60'59,50"N / 8°40'35,30"O", produced in 2007, which examines the apparently unbridgeable gap between man and nature: "With the help of smuggled-in natural materials, I transformed a suite of the Hilton Hotel in Frankfurt into a forest clearing for one night. Here, real turf, small planted trees and an igloo tent become a natural reservation for the successful businessman, who can live out his longing for a true experience of nature with candlelight, packet soup and birdsong from his MacBook in front of the Frankfurt skyline." (D.B.) The slide projection "Outdoor Mobil" (2009), which will be shown in the second exhibition week, documents a journey undertaken by the artist along the classic route of the Germans at the time of the economic miracle: to Rimini across the Gotthart; Lago di Como, the beach in Rimini and the return journey via Venice and the Brenner Pass in a home-made “Outdoor-Mobil”. "This consists of a truck, on the loading area of which - it can be folded out on three sides - areas of natural lawn have been laid out as well as a tent and a campfire. Once a stage on the journey has been reached, the lorry is parked and unfolded and the campsite, which is always immediately usable, can be occupied." (D.B.)
Daniel Beerstecher, born in Schwäbisch Hall in 1979, lives and works in Stuttgart and while travelling.

Daniel Beerstecher
23rd July - 8th August 2010
Tuesday - Sunday, 2 - 7 pm
Opening: Thursday, 22nd July 2010, from 7 pm
Gallery spaces at Kottbusser Straße 10

ANDREAS SCHULZE is presenting "U.S. TRILOGY I, Vegas". The series of inkjet prints made in 2006/07 is based on collective images and subjective narration, but evades any obvious orientation on a plot. No story is told here; it is more a matter of dissolving concrete structures of action and – in relation to this to this – of producing void symbols and references. Neither the depicted destruction of a house front nor the various male portraits offer us any information about who is acting here, in whose name, and why. What remain are doubt, perhaps a basic pessimistic mood, and possibly the challenge to search for the correct contexts. It seems as if the streets, cities, houses, arising and departure, interrogation and espionage, the persecutors and the persecuted have the same vanishing point: Vegas.
Andreas Schulze, born in Leipzig in 1965, studied fine art at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig.

Andreas Schulze
23rd July - 8th August 2010
Tuesday - Sunday, 2 - 7 pm
Opening: Thursday, 22nd July 2010, from 7 pm
Gallery spaces at Kottbusser Straße 10