Undocumented at PS120 / Berlin

Undocumented / Co-Curated by Juliet Kothe and Justin Polera


Katja Aufleger, Julian Charrière, Petrit Halilaj, Christine Sun Kim, Yann-Vari Schubert , Alvaro Urbano



13.9- 9.11,  2019



PS120
Potsdamer Straße 120, 10785, Berlin












































Undocumented, A Group Show at PS120
reviewed by Dara Eleanor Jochum


To be undocumented, at the end of the 2010s means to not be
something.
Unproven, unreal. Millions of undocumented humans traveling across
continents trying to find new homes. Undocumented knowledge ceases to pass as
such. To be undocumented means to exist beyond
legitimization. To not be documented
however, also allows a freedom to mutate, to shape-shift and thus triumph over
a single, eternalized form.
The autumn show at PS120 using that exact status as its bold
title brings together forms of artistic expression
that challenge standard modes of
documentation and through this manage to evade equilibrium.
 
While art institutions struggle
more
than ever to motivate
visitors to come and see
their exhibitions instead of scrolling through visual
documentation in the form of tiny square
s on Instagram, curators Juliet Kothe and Justin
Polera have deliberately decided to abstain from publishing yet a single
installation shot

for the length of the show
. Many of the works by the seven selected artists
defy a purely aesthetic experience and compel the viewer to complete the work
through imagination, speculation or in the case of Adrian Piper
s Humming Room, direct involvement.
A curtain and a strict guard separate the room from the rest
of the space, only accessible to those who hum a tune.
Sound
reemerges
in
multiple forms throughout the show. Christine Sun Kim
s site
specific murals depict
the fictional sign language gestures, grand swooping hands, of The Sound
of Low Frequencies Attempting to Be Heavy and
The Sound of Temperatures Rising. Sun Kim, who has been deaf
since birth, makes no distinction between audible and inaudible sounds and thus
challenges hierarchical models of perception. Here, to be u
ndocumented
refers not only to art which cease
s to be documentable, but art as a possible expression of the
undocumentable
the
intangible.
What do rising temperatures sound like? Placed in immediate
proximity to Katja Auflegers soundscape Al Wakra, where the deep humming of the
singing
dunes
of
Al Wakra, Quatar, dominate the space, this question becomes one of current
geopolitical relevance. Seven glass pipes made out of the sand Aufleger collected
in the Al Wakadi desert, are fed air at varying intensities, literally bringing
the presence of the wailing dunes and endless red deserts into the space. We
find ourselves confronted with yet another alternative presence, that of mass
destruction, in Auflegers Newton
s Cradle, where three glass balls
filled with nitroglycerine are suspended from the ceiling cheek to cheek. So
delicately hung, were the balls to break and the liquids meet, they would
trigger an explosion strong enough to eradicate the building. These works not
only charge the space with a sense of acute vigilance, but also invite potent
response. You can
t help yourself from thinking – what if?
Julian Charrière, Alvaro Urbano and Petrit
Hlilaj all seek to document things that no longer exist. Halilaj does so by
using golden boxes filled with animals modulated in dirt, which only reveal
themselves when viewed close up, to explore the cultural heritage of his
no-longer existing home of Yugoslavia. Urbano reimagines lost or destroyed objects,
like artist On Kawara
s briefcase stuffed with postcards to friends. Julian Charrières charcoal sculptures are slabs of wood burnt to cinder,
printed with illustrations of now-extinct tropical fauna. The delicate
black-on-black printing reveals itself only in immediate proximity, similar to
Yann-Vari Schubert
s equally monochrome prints hung close by. In two series,
Schubert mixes automated, highly complex algorithmic printing techniques with
natural interventions. By manually adding pigments or printing on flowing
water, the computable processes are destroyed and the outcomes are unique.
Standing in front of the
series
H2HNO, all UV prints on the surface of water, I couldnt help but pull out my phone
camera before hastily, almost embarrassed, changing my mind and putting it away
again.
You could never show it to anybody, as its elusive beauty would only be betrayed.
In the show notes, Dieter Mersch speaks of the performativity of art. Revisiting Benjamins thoughts on Auraverlust,
the loss of aura through reproduction, updated for 21st century contexts of
digital reproduction where overstimulation emerges through over-saturation.
When I went to visit PS120 I was alone in the space. It was still early in the
day and one of the last sunny days of the year. A passage from Ben Lerner
s 10:04, one of my favorite
novels, came to mind. The protagonist is invited to visit the Donald Judd boxes
in Marfa, Texas, after ignorantly dismissing them of being of inferior interest
to him. When he arrives in the space, however, he is stunned. The light floods
across the reflective aluminum, making it hard to tell what is inside and out.
The reflection of a deer racing by.
One box is a mirror, another an abyss;
all surface one moment, all depth the next.
When Katja Auflegers sand dunes flare into a
crescendo the sounds mixing with those of the bustling Potsdamer Stra
ße outside, the sun reflected
in the glas and drenched every corner of the space in bright, crisp clarity.
Maybe this it, I thought, the thing Ben Lerner meant when he speaks of a
profound experience of art.