Welcome to the Jungle at KW Institute for Contemporary Art

Press Release

On September 15, 2015, KW Institute for Contemporary Art opens the group show WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, KW’s contribution to STADT/BILD (IMAGE OF A CITY), a collaboration between Berlinische Galerie, Deutsche Bank KunstHalle, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, and Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The project is initiated and funded by the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Senate Chancellery – Cultural affairs, and opens within the Berlin Art Week. Please find press material at www.stadt-bild.berlin/en/press.

Parallel to this, KW opens the SALON OF HYBRID THINGS with works by Sol Calero, Peles Empire, and Josip Novosel, as well as DOUBLE ROOM, an exhibition series by the Master students of Curatorial Studies – Theorie – Geschichte – Kritik of the Goethe-Universität and Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste – Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main.

Please see the press releases below for further information on both projects.

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Sol Calero, Peles Empire and Josip Novosel
SALON OF HYBRID THINGS
16.–30.9.15
Venue: KW PROJECTS
Group exhibition, curated by Maurin Dietrich and Nina Mende

Press reception: Monday, 14.9.15, 10–12 h
Opening: Tuesday, 15.9.15, 18–22 h

Originating in the format of the salon, initially conceived as a space of creative discourse for a selected circle, – Sol Calero, Peles Empire and Josip Novosel define the site KW PROJECTS as a half-social space, between involvement and exclusion, conception and activation. The exhibiting artists share an interest in social structures, which they reflect and translate spatially. Drawing from specific spaces and the events experienced there, the salon questions their potential and value for transformation within the context of the art space. As remnants of past events, the presented artworks in the Salon become hybrid things – „sometimes an object, sometimes a social bond, and sometimes discourse“ (Bruno Latour).

The following events took place before the SALON OF HYBRID THINGS:

Salsa sounds drift out of La Mambita dance studio on a mellow summer night in Berlin. The room is filled with twirling couples and the scent of tanning-oil. Ruben Blades’ song PEDRO NAVAJA is playing, the lyrics are complex but nobody speaks the language. The bar has been set up next to the fan, a few people are practicing basic steps in front of a mirror: the dance, to them, is excitingly exotic. It brings a place to mind that they have never been to – tropical and unknown.

King Carol I of Romania once walked through the richly decorated rooms of Peleș Castle. A walk through his summer residence led him and his guests through all great stylistic eras, from Gothic to Art Déco – each room dedicated to another time. However, as one looked into the big mirror in the hall, the contours of things suddenly blurred, the rooms became flat, multiplying themselves endlessly and finally forming a sometimes colorful, sometimes monochrome setting, in front of which a lot of people anywhere in the world sat together sociably. As the sun rises over Berlin the next morning there is silence. The guests are gone and also the scenery is vanishing slowly – only to reproduce itself again moments later, to condense and to wait for the next visitor.

Tables in an empty room on which chairs lean carelessly. U CAN’T SIT WITH US, the memory of that moment when someone pulled the chair from underneath you while you were sitting down in the school cafeteria. Making fun of someone or something, coming together and being antisocial when someone is wearing track pants on a day that isn’t Friday. Casting, code and common sense, to define who can sit, who can’t.

Opening hours
Wed–Mon 12–19 h, Thu 12–21 h, Tue closed

Admission
Admission free

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DOUBLE ROOM
Exhibition series by the Master students of Curatorial Studies – Theorie – Geschichte – Kritik of the Goethe-Universität and Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste – Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main
16.9.15–4.1.16
Venue: 3 ½

Openings:
Tuesday, 15.9.15, 18 h, at Berlin Art Week:
DOUBLE ROOM #1: George Rippon and Anina Troesch

Friday, 9.10.15, 19 h:
DOUBLE ROOM #2: Rosa Aiello and Cooper Jacoby, with a reading by Rosa Aiello

Friday, 6.11.15, 19 h:
DOUBLE ROOM #3: Filippa Pettersson and Rasmus Søndergaard Johannsen, with a performance of Filippa Pettersson with Amy Ball

Saturday, 5.12.15, 19 h:
DOUBLE ROOM #4: Carola Keitel and Hannes Seidl, with a concert by Sebastian Berweck, Maximilian Marcoll, and Hannes Seidl

The exhibition series DOUBLE ROOM combines two artistic positions in each of its four consecutive exhibitions, thus highlighting its inherent collaborative process. The forms of collaboration range from juxtaposing existing artworks to new joint productions. The 3 ½ space at KW Institute for Contemporary Art provides the frame, and counters its miniscule size by functioning as a “double room”. The various connections between the artworks , be it objects, material assemblages, sound or video installations,– arise from the dialogical structure and are further enhanced by their spatial proximity. The space is thus intermittently perceived as an exhibition room focusing on an individual object, and then as a large-scale installation coalescing boundaries between a piece and its surrounding.

The artists “move into” the DOUBLE ROOM successively, constantly appropriating the space anew and redefining its content. George Rippon (born 1983 in New York, US) and Anina Troesch (born 1987 in Emmental, CH) develop a new site-specific work in dialog with each other. Instead of presenting individual works, they intervene directly in the space. Both artists continuously question the function of the room through an analysis of the space’s preexisting architectural elements and materials. Rosa Aiello (born 1987 in Hamilton, CA) und Cooper Jacoby (born 1989 in Princeton, US) are concerned with concealed power structures and the conditioning of individual desire and social action. While Jacoby transforms the entrance to the exhibition space into a sculpture, Aiello confronts the audience with the affective manipulation strategies behind regulated perception in a video displayed inside the room. Rasmus Søndergaard Johannsen (born 1982 in Brovst, DK) and Filippa Pettersson (born 1987 in Södermanland, SE) connect the DOUBLE ROOM to the adjacent staircase so that the ascension becomes part of the exhibition space. In their new productions both artists investigate objects and their materiality in an attempt to to rid them of their context and undertake a sculptural, sonic and performative translation. Carola Keitel (born 1983 in Bad Friedrichshall, DE) and Hannes Seidl (born 1977 in Bremen, DE) insert the urban into the exhibition space by transforming their findings into acoustic and sensory mediums of perception. Elements from an urban environment that are usually only perceived peripherally, if at all, are displayed here in isolation.

The exhibition series DOUBLE ROOM is funded by the Ernst Schering Foundation, Berlin.

The Master’s program Curatorial Studies – Theorie – Geschichte – Kritik is supported by the Adolf Messer Stiftung and the Dr. Hans Feith und Dr. Elisabeth Feith-Stiftung.

Opening hours
Wed–Mon 12–19 h, Thu 12–21 h, Tue closed

Admission
Admission free

Press contact
KW Institute for Contemporary Art:
Henriette Sölter
T +49 30 2434 59-42
presse@kw-berlin.de

Auguststr. 69
10117 Berlin

www.kw-berlin.de
www.facebook.com/KWInstituteforContemporaryArt
www.facebook.com/KWFreunde

DOUBLE ROOM:
presse_doppelzimmer@gmx.de
www.doppelzimmer.tumblr.com
www.kuratierenundkritik.net