The exhibition takes its title from a section of the book “The society of fatigue” di Byung-Chul Han: “Paul Cezanne, this master of deep, contemplative attention, once observed that it would also be about seeing the smell of things. Visualizing odors requires deep attention”
This statement by Cezanne is very poetic, and to think of getting to visualize the smell of things means being able to “enter” things, our lives, relationships, passions, our work deeply…something that today’s capitalist society no longer allows us to do. We are living at an increasingly frenetic pace, and we are increasingly concerned about the younger and younger generations “born into the screen”, increasingly directed toward alienation and an “other reality”.
Deep attention is what our contemporary society requires.
“The ever-increasing workload also necessitates a special technique of time and attention,
which retroacts on the very structure of attention.
The technique of time and attention called multitasking does not constitute civilizing progress. Concern is the anxiety of living well increasingly gives way to concern for survival.” 1
With the disappearance of rest, the faculty of listening would be lost, and the community of listeners would disappear. Our action-oriented society stands in direct opposition to this. The faculty of listening is actually rooted in the ability to maintain deep, contemplative attention, something that the hyperactive ego is unable to access.
Multitasking isn’t a unique ability limited to humans in the context of late-modern work and information society. It is, rather, a regression. Multitasking is already prevalent among animals in nature. It’s an attention strategy crucial for survival in the wild.
For example, an animal focused on feeding must simultaneously handle other tasks. It needs to fend off other predators from its prey, remain vigilant to avoid being eaten itself, protect its offspring, and monitor potential mates.
In nature, therefore, the animal is accustomed to dividing its attention among different activities. Humanity’s cultural activities, including philosophy, owe their existence to profound contemplative attention. Culture assumes an environment where deep attention can flourish. However, this deep attention is gradually being replaced by a very different type of attention—hyper attention.
The constant shifting of focus between various tasks, information sources, and processes is characteristic of this dispersed form of attention. Since it has little tolerance for boredom, it rarely allows for the profound boredom that is vital to the creative process.
Walter Benjamin describes this deep boredom as an “enchanted bird that hatches the egg of experience.” Just as sleep represents the peak of physical rest, profound boredom can be seen as the peak of spiritual rest. Pure frenzy doesn’t generate anything new; it simply reproduces and speeds up what already exists.
The narrative of the exhibition is constructed of different media. The works are meant to leave time for pondering, for making time, for taking time, which we often don’t do anymore. Even exhibition openings become more and more a time for networking, for public relations, for quick greetings, as many greetings as possible. Of course, this aspect of meeting is also crucial within the sphere of relationships, and these become one of the few moments in which “colleagues in the cultural world” can find to meet again; but often one does not have the time to really look at the works on display. Allison Grimaldi Donahue’s work “babe, I’m busy” requires us to pause, a pause of “full-screen” reading, of contemplation:
“Get busy living or get busy dying like it’s an either-or choice One chicken in the hand is worth two in yr bush…”
Her poem playing with the effects of time in our daily life, the fixed phrases of how we describe the everyday, and what it means to play with words in our mouths. She engages in text and performance, investigating how language and text can transition between personal and collective experiences, exploring how language can be both functional and futile, significant and a vessel; often utilizing participatory writing approaches to create spontaneous communities of writers and translators. The practice of reading is something that requires us a slow fruition, carving out time for reading in our “everyday success” is becoming increasingly difficult, often waiting for summer vacation to be able to read a book in its entirety.
REAL/BOOKS is a time-traveling used-bookstore, specializing in the 20the century paperback revolution and its 21st century aftermath. Theorized by proprietor (and ex-librarian) Dr. Marq v. Schlegell,, maker of, and contributor to science fiction and contemporary art since 1999, it has been exhibited throughout the years in different contexts such as galleries, art book fairs, and institutions. For the exhibition, a classical book-rack presents a special selection of science fiction engaged thematically with time. Items are actually on sale for cash in the local currency, unless otherwise noted. Marq will be performing sales and devoting time to dialogue with visitors to the exhibition. Today most books are boring to most people; these books can introduce to a deeper, theoretical boredom, of interest to the specialist and committed reader.
Cèline condorelli’s film “Afterwork”, co-directed with Ben Rivers, takes up the process of making a playground as the starting point for a reflection on the relation between work and free-time, highlighting the hidden labour behind the making of a playground, Condorelli was commissioned to make in South London. Celine and Ben’s beautiful film reveals elegant animal presences, such as a cat and a fox, whose movements interact, appearing and disappearing with the sculptural element (the playground) and the natural element, accompanied by an engaging soundtrack by Jay Bernard.
By combining objects and images from various sources and temporalities, Nicolás lamas creates works where humans, animals, and technology enter into a symbiotic relationship. These pieces evoke associations with the processes of emergence, growth, and decay in both human and non-human forms, where objects lose their original identities to become indistinct entities. His research is manifested through installations and hybrid assemblages that blend biological and technological elements, exploring new encounters and exchanges of information. Lamas’ work delves into the intricate connections between humans, technology, and nature, inviting reflection on life, death, growth, and the interplay of natural and artificial processes. This approach challenges traditional boundaries, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all things, like a mesh weaving a dynamic and ever-evolving reality.
Frances Scholz crosses between several mediums, including film, sculpture, textile, and painting, with a focus on the theme of “ground” or “base” in a broader sense, examining our relationship with nature. Die Arbeit liegt im Wald / The work lies in the forest. With natural spontaneity forms and themes spill across boundaries, including those between plant and human, plant and mineral, between life and nonlife. Inspired by the work of physicist and philosopher Karen Barad, who reimagines the relationship between science, philosophy, and ethics through the concept of “intra- action.” According to Barad, objects and subjects do not exist in isolation but are constantly co- constituted with one another. In her film “Earth Wall, Skeleton” (2024) an ecosystem under threat inspires the artist to discover new flows of time to counter the shock of this apocalyptic era.
Federico del Vecchio’s work “sentimental RGB” is accomplished through the recovery of hundreds of prescription glasses and sunglasses, graded and ungraded, mirrored, smoked and chromed. The sculpture-display (or curtain as one might prefer to call it) suspended in space becomes a screen of the collective, the weary gaze of others in a “single gaze”. A screen that activates new distortions by interacting with the viewers and the environment. “The society of tiredness” is characterized by an enormous amount of time that our eyes, our posture, our mind, our attention devotes to the digital screen; our society is increasingly turned toward the pursuit of wellness and meditation and so “yoga for the eyes”. Digital creativity, since the birth of the post-internet era leads us to subtract a huge amount of time that we might instead dedicate to research in the studio. This digital work takes the artist away from tactile explorations of form. At the same time, the screen-based-work is a necessity. “Yoga For Eyes” implies that digital life results in physical ailments such as posture problems, or fatigue of the eyes.
“Play-White” by Bianca Baldi is an underwater narrative that brings together female characters embodying the literary trope of the Tragic Mulatta. This character is often depicted as being deeply saddened by not being fully accepted by either community. An example of such a character is Clare Kendry from Nella Larsen’s 20th-century novel “Passing”.
At the heart of the film is the artist’s exploration of the Versipellis phenomenon, a Latin-derived term meaning “one who changes skin.” Cuttlefish, for instance, can change their skin color to evade predators. In this video, the cuttlefish, also known as sepia, represents both a creature that refuses to be confined to a single color and the source of sepia pigment.”
1 The Burnout Societyby Byung-Chul Han, Stanford University Press. August 12, 2015
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ARTISTS BIO
Bianca Baldi (Johannesburg, South Africa 1985) is based in Brussels. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2007 from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town, South Africa, and completed her studies at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. Her work has been featured in major international exhibitions such as MOMENTA Biennale de l’Image in Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal, the 11th African Photography Biennale in Bamako, the 11th Shanghai Biennale, the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art and group shows at Kunsthalle Bern, Extra City Kunsthal Antwerp, Kunstverein Braunschweig and Kunstverein Frankfurt. Recent solo exhibitions include Patina at Photoforum Pasquart (2022), Cameo at Grazer Kunstverein (2021), Versipellis at Superdeals in Brussels (2018), Eyes in the Back of Your Head at Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof (2017) and Pure Breaths at Swimming Pool in Sofia (2016).
Céline Condorelli (IT, FR, UK) is a London-based artist, and was one of the founding directors of Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK; she is the author and editor of Support Structures published by Sternberg Press (2009) and the 2023 National Gallery Artist in Residence. Condorelli combines a number of approaches from developing structures for “supporting” (the work of others, forms of political imaginary, existing and fictional realities) to broader enquiries into forms of commonality and discursive sites. A recent selection of exhibitions and projects include:
Radical Playgrounds, Gropius Bau, Germany (2024); Museum Hours, Galeria Vera Cortês, Portugal (2024); Pentimenti (The Corrections), National Gallery, UK (2023), After Work, Talbot Rice Gallery & South London Gallery, UK (2022); Our Silver City 2094, Nottingham Contemporary, UK (2022); Dos años de vacaciones, TEA, Tenerife, Spain (2021); Deux ans de vacances, FRAC Lorraine, Metz, France (2020); Ground Control, Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden (2020); Every Step in the Right Direction, Singapore Biennial (2019); Art Encounters Biennial, Timisoara, Romania (2019); Céline Condorelli, Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel, Switzerland (2019); Host / Vært, Kunsthal Aarhus, Denmark (2019); Zanzibar (commissioned sculpture), King’s Cross Projects, London, UK (2019); Geometries, Locus Athens, Greece (2018).
Federico Del Vecchio (Naples, Italy 1977). He is engaged in an independent artistic practice as well as co-curator of Flip Project. He attended the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, followed by completing the Master in Fine Art at The Glasgow School of Art. He is the recipient of the Marie Curie Research Fellowship 2015 at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He has taken part recently at the Banff residency program, Alberta, CA, thanks to the support from financial aid of the Banff Centre and Nctm e l’arte: Artist-in-residence VIII edition, Milan, Italy. In 2018 he completed the CuratorLab program at Konstfack University in Stockholm: a curatorial program for professionals directed by Joanna Warsza in collaboration with Tensta Konsthall and Maria Lind. At the International Curatorial Exchange on the occasion of EXPO Chicago 2023 he is among the two Italians invited as ‘guest curators’. Selected solo and group exhibitions: Carta Canta, Umberto Di Marino Arte Contemporanea, Napoli, IT (2024); You can live forever, Umberto Di Marino Contemporary Art, Naples, IT (2022); Zur Frohen Aussicht, Josiane Imhasly, YES, FAST [cit.] – performance in collaboration with Othmar Farre’, Ernen, CH (2019); Manifesta 12 – May the bridges I burn light the way, Exile Gallery – Berlin, Palermo, IT (2018); Ci vediamo forse a Natale, MSUM – project room, Ljubljana, SI (2017); ADAPT-r, Ambika P3, University of Westminster, London, UK Centre for Arts and Creativity, BaiR Winter Program, Alberta, CA (2017); Feelings, curated by Camille Gérenton e Anouchka Oler, Brussels, BG (2016); Big Opening, Riverside, Berna, CH (2015); I wish I were a Futurist, Jenifer Nails, Frankfurt am Main, DE (2014).
Allison Grimaldi Donahue (Middletown, Connecticut USA 1984); works in text and performance exploring modes in which language and text can move between individual and collective experience. She often employs participatory writing methods to build improvised communities of writers and translators, investigating the ways in which language is useful and useless, meaningful and a receptacle. She is author of Body to Mineral (Publication Studio Vancouver 2016) and On Endings (Delere Press 2019) and translator of Blown Away by Vito M. Bonito (Fomite 2021) and Self-portrait by Carla Lonzi (Divided 2021).
She has given recent performances at Short Theatre, Almanac Turin, Flip Project Napoli, MACRO, and Kunsthalle Bern. She has been in recent exhibitions at MACTE Termoli and Hangar Biccoca as well. She lives in Bologna.
Nicolás Lamas (Lima, Peru 1980). Lives and works in Brussels.
His most relevant solo exhibitions include: Scenarios for coexistence, Cukrarna, Ljubljana, Assemblage and circulation, De Vereniging (SMAK), Times in collapse, CCC OD, Archaeology of darkness, Meessen De Clercq, Liquid bones, La Borie, Liminality, Sabot, Against the boundary of its own definition, Ladera Oeste, The form of decay, P/IIIIAKT, Todo objeto es un espacio temporal, Fundació Joan Miró, Ocaso, Galería Lucia de la Puente, Loss of symmetry, Loods 12, Potential remains, DASH. He has taken part in numerous group exhibitions, most notably: Mixed up with others before we even begin, MUMOK, non-human-matters, Aldea, Finis terrae, Museum Plantin – Moretus, Beneath the skin, between the machines, HOW Art Museum Shanghai, Vienna Biennale for Change 2021, MAK, Beaufort Tiennial 2021, Bredene, Permafrost: Forms of disaster, MO.CO, An exhibition with works by….. Witte De With, The penumbral age: Art in the time of planetary change, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Something happened, CCCC, Drowning in a sea of data, La Casa Encendida, Des attentions. Centre d’ Art Contemporain d’lvry-sur-Seine, The intention of things, Trafó gallery, Notes on our equilibrium, CAB Art Center, Du verb a la comunication. Museé Carré d’Art, Presque la même chose, Kunsthalle Mullhouse, Fotografía después de la fotografía, Bienal de fotografía de Lima, MAC.
Ben Rivers (Somerset, UK 1972) lives and works in London. Rivers’ films are typically intimate portrayals of solitary beings or isolated communities; his practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction. Rivers uses these themes as a starting point from which to imagine alternative narratives and existences in marginal worlds. Recent solo exhibitions include Ghost Strata and other stories, Jeu de Paume, Paris (2023); It’s About Time, STUK, Leuven, Belgium (2023); After London, Jeu de Paume, Paris (2022); Urthworks, Kunstnernes Hus in Oslo, Norway (2021) and Hestercombe House, Somerset, UK (2020); Now, at Last!, Kate MacGarry Gallery, London (2019); Urth, Renaissance Society, Chicago, (2016); Islands, Hamburg Kunstverein, Germany (2016); Earth Needs More Magicians, Camden Arts Centre, London (2015) and Fable, Temporary Gallery, Cologne, Germany (2014).
Frances Scholz (*Washington D.C., USA 1962) and studied at the College of Fine Arts, Berlin. Since 2002 she has been a professor at the Braunschweig University of Art/HBK (DE) and lives and works in Cologne. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at venues including Abteiberg Museum Mönchengladbach (DE), CCA Wattis Institute San Francisco (US) and the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas (US). Further on institutions like the KunstMuseum, Bonn, (DE), Museum Ludwig, Cologne (DE), Chisenhale Gallery, London (GB), CAPC Museum, Bordeaux (F), Witte de Witt, Museum Rotterdam (NL), MOCA, Museum Los Angeles (US), Galeria Studio, Warsaw (PL), ICA, London (GB) or Artists Space, New York (US), The Kitchen, New York (US), K21, Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf (DE), Sculpture Park, Cologne screened her films and presented her paintings and objects.
Writer/Artist Mark von Schlegell (b. New York, 1967) is the author of more than eleven published books of fiction and criticism, and numerous stories, exhibitions, performances, scripts, essays, and experimental short form writings. He holds a Ph. D. in English and American literature from New York University. He has taught literature and art at NYU, CalArts, the San Francisco Art Institute, and Staedelschule, Frankfurt. His novels are published by Semiotext(e); his criticism has appeared in Aftforum, Texte Zur Kunst, Mousse, Spex and the New York Review of Science Fiction.
Giulia Ratti (Milan, Italy 1992) is an artist, she works between Milan and Copenhagen. She began her career promoting emerging artists by organizing contemporary art exhibitions in underground contexts and private foundations between Milan and London. Since 2020 she has extended her artistic practice to comics and illustration. In 2023 her works were exhibited at the MAO – Museo di Arte Orientale in Turin, in 2024 she illustrated Zima Blue by Alistair Reynolds for Moscabianca Edizioni (Rome) and in 2025 Hunov & Haffgaard will publish her first comic in Denmark. She designed the visual identity of the exhibition. The orange hue is inspired by images from thermal cameras, these devices transform a tactile stimulus into a visible image. The shapes of the illustration recall internal and external parts of our bodies, even if they are not anatomically accurate. The set of elements is designed to create a suspended atmosphere, an illusion of contact.
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Lore Deutz is a non-commercial project space in the studio house KunstWerk Köln.
The exhibition program of KunstWerk Köln e.V. was founded in 2012 under the name PiK Deutz (Projektraum im Kunstwerk) and continued from 2022 under the name Lore Deutz by Michael Heym, Erika Hock, Alwin Lay and Johannes Tassilo Walter. Since 2024, Alrun Aßmus, Jan Gerngroß, Michael Heym and Alwin Lay have been designing the exhibition program.
Flip Project is an artist-run space (2011, Naples), an independent curatorial project, a platform for discussions devoted to developing models of collaboration that expand on interests in contemporary culture and artistic practice.
Flip is motivated by continuous changes in location and spontaneous occurrences that extend from the local to address the current milieu. Flip presents across a multiplicity of ‘spatial’ situations where discussions take shape as exhibitions, publications (web, digital and print), workshops, screenings, seminars.
Flip has curated in dialogue with fellow participants/artists/authors/curators involved in a variety of projects that have taken place also in unusual contexts, outside of museum norms, and beyond borders.