Seep into my skin. Oil to leather.
Our teeth fell out while we waited for them to grow back in 100 years. She had tried to run out, that is
why she’s tied up. She had lost her mouth by then. It kissed the tap and hugged the sink. They kept
talking and talking at her, but she couldn’t talk because she was breathing… or he was breathing.
“If you bang your head against the wall you should be able to talk.”
My visions abandoned, I shed my skin. Carmine flesh and navy veins glow in the moonlight.
Is this release?
The lock, the door, the clasp, the hair strand chain. I expanded when I was bound, my sebum stains the
pillow case.
“Our love is like the movies”
Head kisses the surface.
Always.
Amidst the chaos of fractured dreams- discarded Christmas decorations, dried flowers, and animal
remains- Williams’ found and preserved sculptures resonate in hushed tones. Images and works were
developed amid several encounters with dead deer and birds on the route to work. The relationship
between the potential of sculpture and the existential notions of mortality and isolation reveal dialogues that
span memory, nature, and the human condition. This new series of work captures a still breath – forms
that whisper and capture life’s essence in a close embrace.
A symphony of silhouettes is orchestrated, echoing within obscured frames, experiencing the fluent
romance of existence. The work reinterprets the complexities of life through the lens of Dada, a
movement that reveled in narrative fragmentation.
Their subjects go through rigorous almost alchemical processes, constructing an atmospheric scrying
stone. In wandering through this vast terrain, one might discover their own narrative interwoven within the
figurations, reminiscent of hearing a best kept secret.
Emily Lucid
https://daily-lazy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/BW_001-1.jpgMy longtime friend and teacher, Walter Dahn, passed away on November 7, shortly after the opening of his exhibition “HAVE LOVE WILL TRAVEL“ at Haus Mödrath, Kerpen. Starting January 12, an eight-part exhibition series runs alongside his exhibition, featuring artists who studied with Walter Dahn.
*
Haus Mödrath is excited to announce Ralph Schuster’s debut solo exhibition in this series. For the occasion, the artist presents a new collection of paintings, shown here for the first time. The imagery and color choices in this series hold a unique place within the broader scope of his work. Using a pared-down palette, motifs from his expansive drawing universe have been translated onto small wooden panels. In this exceptional series, dark and twisted imagery of the yonder is presented with a wink and a touch of humor.
Born in 1982, Ralph Schuster studied Fine Arts under Walter Dahn at the University of Art in Braunschweig. He currently lives and works in Brussels.
https://daily-lazy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/01_Haus-Modrath_Ralph-Schuster-2-scaled.jpgAbout a decade ago, when encountering the works of Alfredo Aceto, we were already struck by the ability to manipulate objects and concepts. Back then, we encountered installations, devices, and scenographies, far removed from the minimalist appearance of his first exhibition at Parliament, Lingua Enfumante (2021). Even then, Aceto used photography not merely as a tool for documentation but as a medium to construct images, forms, and specific bodies of work.
For his second solo exhibition at Parliament, Aceto has chosen to present, for the first time, only photographs. The decision marks a lateral step and a revelation of a facet of his oeuvre that has largely remained under the radar. The images of Aceto have been subjected to liminal manipulation through Photoshop. These are, in essence, deliberately archaic images that bring editing software back into the realm of manual labor and bricolage, opposing the pursuit of perfection that such tools typically embody. The photographs are rife with imprecisions, “bugs in the matrix,” and glitches, celebrating a kind of technological failure reminiscent of an American current—a post-Pictures Generation?—to which we can link artists Cheyney Thompson, Leslie Hewitt, and Wade Guyton.
The images of Aceto also evoke another strain of American art: that of Bernadette Corporation and Reena Spaulings, which playfully deconstruct notions of authorship while subverting the codes of luxury and fashion. Notably, Aceto unearthed a selection of archival images from an unknown watch designer in Geneva, the global capital of such objects. This collection of around a hundred documents forms the foundation of the exhibition. They are scanned and modified by the artist and like their rough alterations, they embody a narrative of failure. The archives are paradoxical on multiple levels. They were discovered in Les Cygnes shopping mall in Geneva, where the artist’s studio is located—a Swiss “popular” district where passersby are unlikely to purchase luxury watches. The objects represent a form of discounted luxury, a pseudo-chic discernible to the trained eye, much like the exhibition title itself, which juxtaposes the faded charm of Les Cygnes mall with the absolute opulence of 1970s French modernity, epitomized by the Concorde supersonic aircraft.
Through this new series of subtly reimagined photographs, Aceto gracefully reminds us of the power of images, the failed aspirations of modernity, and the “history beside history.”1
Loïc Le Gall
1 Citation of the artist, December 2024
Born in 1991 in Torino, Alfredo Aceto lives and works between Paris and Geneva. Among his recent solo exhibitions are Full Moon Sergio, CIRCUIT, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Lausanne (2024); Faces of Francis, MLIS, Villeurbanne (2024); and 3, HUA International, Berlin (2023). Alfredo Aceto has participated in several collective exhibitions, including Le MAMCO, de mémoire, MAMCO, Geneva (2024); Zinnober Video Festival, Hannover (2024); Swiss Art Awards, Basel (2024); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva (2023); Palazzo Tamborino Cezzi, Lecce (2023); Poems of Change, Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, MCBA (2023); Transformations, Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf (2023); Barbe à Papa, CAPC, Bordeaux (2022); Soft Machines, HUA International, Berlin (2022); Musée Jenisch, Vevey (2022); Ambarabà Ciccì Coccò, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, St. Gallen (2021); Galerie Noah Klink, Berlin (2021); Uplift, Galerie Xippas, Geneva (2020); Spazio Maiocchi, Milan (2020); 80|90, Villa Médicis, Rome (2019); The Big Rio, Buone Chill or Crunch?, Last Tango, Zürich (2019). Alfredo Aceto’s work is represented in several public and private collections, including the MAMCO (Geneva); MCBA, Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin); Mobilière Collection, Zürich; Julius Bär, Zürich; BCV, Lausanne; Museo del 900 (Milan).
Most of the paintings in this exhibition depict a world turned upside down. Four works are painted directly fromphotographs taken at aHaus Steht Kopf (Upside Down House)in Terfens, Austria. Designed primarily as a touristattraction for children and families, the site is a photo-op playground generating endless content for hungryfeeds. Three other works present scenes tightly cropped by the edges of window frames—Vienna’s city hallfrom the seat of a dentist’s chair, the façade of the old Carpenter’s Guild seen from Gogl’s child’s bedroom, theview of trees from the bathroom window. A nod to 17th-century Flemish oil paintings of windows that broke thepicture plane and called attention to the reality of their subjects and surroundings, Gogl’s paintings continue to beoccupied by the relationship between the real and the virtual.
In this show, Gogl is not as concerned with inventing new scenes through painting as much as she is concernedwith the transformation that happens when a human processes an image by hand—when the painter’s gaze driftsto the inverted, sometimes absurd, cognitive spaces in image making.
Two final paintings in the exhibition each present text; one includes a sign reading “ROCKBOTTOM,” the other“UP” written in the clouds. Taken from an episode ofSpongeBob SquarePantsin which SpongeBob’s worldinverts and the theatrical poster from the Pixar filmUPrespectively, Gogl’s renderings of these invented universesexpand the otherwise realistic boundaries of the exhibition.
Sophie Gogl (b. 1992, Kitzbühel, Austria) studied painting at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna with Prof.Judith Eisler. Solo and two-person exhibitions include Diana, Milan, Italy (2024); Soloausstellung InnsbruckBiennale, Innsbruck, Austria (2024); Neuer Kunstverein Wien, Austria (2023–2024); DOCK20, Lustenau,Austria (2023); Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus, Switzerland (2023); Francis Irv, New York, NY (2022); KOW, Berlin(2021); The Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna, Austria (2020); and the Galerie der Stadt Schwaz, Austria(2020). Select group exhibitions include Julia Stoschek Foundation, Düsseldorf, Germany (2024); KölnischerKunstverein, Cologne, Germany (2023); Belvedere 21, Vienna, Austria (2023); Kunsthalle Friart, Fribourg,Switzerland (2022); Neuer Wiener Kunstverein Wien, Vienna, Austria (2022 & 2023); and Kunsthalle Bern, Bern,Switzerland (2020).
https://daily-lazy.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/33-SG007-a-1.jpgIn 1996, Heimo Zobernig produced an emblematic edition for the CEC. At the time, Zobernig’s focus was on handmade and artisanal objects. His method? Printing old, damaged and broken lithographic stones. These stones, of which there were 15, were simply polished, then coated with black ink, the printing being limited to a simple transfer onto the paper, revealing shapes and lines resulting from the breaks in these modified surfaces, as they were. These 15 lithographs were reduced to a black, monochrome surface, each printed in an edition of four copies, one e.a. and one H.C. These black rectangles or squares on a white background bore direct comparison to Malevich’s historic black square, with all the distancing, irony and mischief contained in this gesture. Zobernig deconstructs and simplifies the historical references to modernism and minimalism with which his work is associated, shifting them to the field of design and graphics. The technical criteria of a craft – at the time, lithography – are also taken literally: a surface coated with ink, transferred directly onto a sheet of paper, the only motif being the lines of the breaks in this series of stones, found in an old stockpile, forgotten and unusable. A kind of game with a local situation, that of this obsolete workshop from another time, playfully reactivated.
Zobernig pushes his quest for simplification, clarity and neutrality to the level of the simple object. Artistic expression is reduced to a minimum. His strategies include objectification, reduction, standardisation and systemisation. This distancing enables him to shift his perspective, to cultivate a pragmatism that is always tinged with irony, free from pathos, and foremost determined by an unwavering search for autonomy. In reality, Zobernig approaches text like a graphic designer; colour like a “scientist”; objects like an industrialist; space like a scenographer or an architect.
The artist’s production system is broken down into several series, including the shelving structures and bookcases that seem to have been inspired by the famous Billy model, emblematic of Ikea furniture shops. An ironic reference, perhaps, to the modules created by Donald Judd or those used in Robert Morris’ scenographies. These bookcase-structures first appeared in his solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle Zürich in 2011, then at the Museum Bärengasse in 2015, at the KUB in Bregenz and, more recently, at the Mumok in Vienna in 2021. These large series of bookcases are transformed into exhibition displays, architectural structures that intersperse, enter into dialogue with, and sometimes exalt or outright transform the architecture of these institutions.
For some years now, Zobernig has been introducing colour and material variations into his work, as well as sculptural figures, like mannequins in a shop window: non-gendered, schematic, standard human bodies. Geometric, modular figures with balanced proportions, envisaged as elements of architecture, in the image of Le Corbusier’s Modulor. Other stereotypes spring to mind, emblems of the monumental statuary: from ancient statues to the robot-women in Metropolis, Georg Kolbe’s sculpture Der Morgen for Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s German Pavilion in Barcelona, and even statuettes from the Oscars or Hollywood film credits.
Zobernig introduces a break with this monumental, authoritarian classicism. He manipulates, deconstructs, literally turns his figures upside down and sometimes even disguises them. As composites, they are made up of several body parts from different sources: the artist’s head or body glued to bits of old sculptures. Others are reduced to their production method: from 3D to the first bronze casts, left in their raw, unfinished state, broken, more or less well reconstructed, oxidised, chipped or rusted. Some mannequins hang from the shelves of his bookcase-structures, twisted, dislocated, more dramatic, oscillating between mummified, digital and archaic beings.
Zobernig also uses his own body, practising self-reference and self-mockery. In a video made in 1989 (No. 3), he dances, wearing an improbable wig with long hair made of chiffon. He re-enacted this scene in 2023 (no 33), wearing a similar outfit. His body and gestures had changed, becoming stiffer, clumsier, more tired: distancing and irony applied to himself.
Heimo Zobernig’s exhibition at the CEC features a range of productions and editions: five metal bookcases; three screenprints in three combinations of colours and three different qualities of paper (black/white/silver), made up of horizontal lines and the words SELF SHELF EDITION: self-editions, self-shelves, shelf-editions. SELF SHELF, the phonetic proximity of these two words, typographical too, with an extra H between SELF and SHELF, H as in Heimo, H as in a shelf. A play on sounds and words, an association that Zobernig makes with humour between himself and a shelf. These “crosswords” could well have been the title of this exhibition: objects produced, edited and exhibited together with their production system. Shelves, screenprints, flyers and posters produced in Vienna and Geneva, by Zobernig and the CEC, from a distance.
The three 50 x 70 cm screenprints, each with a print run of 10, are also available as flyers (200 copies of one of the screenprints on a white background, paper size: A4) and three posters (three copies, in F4 format). Each of these large posters is printed in black, breaking down and recomposing the different elements: one poster with only the horizontal lines, another with only the words, and the third with the lines and the words.
Heimo Zobernig was born in Mauthen in 1958. He lives and works in Vienna. Some of his most recent exhibitions include: Heimo Zobernig & László Moholy-Nagy, Galerie Nagel Draxler Crypto Kiosk, Berlin (2024); Heimo Zobernig, Galerija Manuš, Split (2024); Richard Hoeck/Heimo Zobernig, 1997/2013, Meliksetian Briggs gallery, Los Angeles (2024); Heimo Zobernig, Meyer Kainer Gallery, Vienna, (2024); Heimo Zobernig, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris (2023); Heimo Zobernig. Der Bildhauer als Zeichner, Kunstraum St. Virgil, Salzburg (2023); Das Grafische Werk, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg (2022); Heimo Zobernig. tHIs oLD nEw, Galerie Bärbel Grässlin, Frankfurt (2022); Enjoy, MUMOK, Vienna (2021); Heimo Zobernig. Spirit Fuck Painting, MARe, Bucharest (2022).
His work has also featured in various group exhibitions, including ECCENTRIC. Aesthetics of Freedom, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2024); Kiesler Today. Work dialogues with contemporaries, Kunsthaus Zug, Zug (2024); Bernard Frize, Matt Mullican, Niele Toroni, Heimo Zobernig, Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerp (2024); From the Collection: Together – Collaborative Art Practices, S.M.A.K., Ghent (2024); Dan Graham. Optics and Humor, Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna (2024); Galerie Christine Mayer, Munich (2024); Soliloquies, Petzel Gallery, New York (2024); Blank.Raw. Illegible. Artists’ Books as Statement (1960-2022), Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren (2023) ; HERE AND NOW II. Vienna Sculpture 2023, Neuer Kunstverein Wien, Vienna (2023); Out of the Box, Schaulager, Basel (2023); Alvin Baltrop, Wade Guyton, Heimo Zobernig, Galerie Francesca Pia, Zurich (2022); Avant-garde and Contemporary Art, Belvedere Museum Vienna, Belvedere 21, Vienna (2022); The Drawing Centre Show, Consortium Museum, Dijon (2022).
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Is the city a diseased organism or an open living space? Matt Welch’s work focuses on the urban environment and its impact on people. He poses critical questions about Siegen’s social space, for example through a video filmed in the old Karstadt building. Through his art, Welch filters sociological reflections in a critical light, highlighting the dangers of a consumer-driven, one-dimensional exploitation of urban spaces.
Born in Liverpool in 1988, Matt Welch works at the intersection of installation, sculpture, video, drawing and sound. His immersive works explore the relationship between physicality and infrastructure, drawing parallels between biological processes such as breathing, digestion and excretion, and urban systems such as transport and information. This exploration is also evident in his sculptures Theatre 1 and Theatre 2. These forms evoke architectural models as well as the internal structures of human organs, where the movement and exchange of substances symbolically represent the traversal of spaces or pathways. Here, both bodies and buildings act as protective shells and retreats – the skin shields the body’s interior, while architecture serves as a sanctuary for people.
The installed wall creates a dark corridor, transporting us into a mysterious sphere and addressing the dual meanings of inside and outside, front and back, visible and hidden. An integrated one-way mirror acts as a window on one side of the corridor, allowing light into the space, and as a mirror on the other. This interplay between reflection and transparency allows viewers to observe the video and other visitors from the corridor without being seen themselves. This subtle tension between visibility and invisibility turns the viewer’s gaze into an active, voyeuristic act, addressing issues of surveillance, privacy and the boundary between public and private space.
The final episode of a video trilogy entitled The Secret Millionaire was filmed by Welch in Frankfurt’s Europaviertel, an area once inhabited by workers and now dominated by modern skyscrapers, reflecting the profound transformation of urban landscapes. The title of the trilogy, The Secret Millionaire, refers to a British reality show in which millionaires anonymously visit impoverished neighbourhoods to offer support. For the Interiors exhibition, Matt Welch filmed in the Karstadt building, which has been empty since 2023, one of those iconic but increasingly disused department stores. The video unfolds a dystopian scene: empty shelves, dark storerooms and naked mannequins stand eerily still in a space that once teemed with life.
An unseen protagonist wanders through the abandoned building like a forgotten witness. His presence is perceived only through soft footsteps and heavy breathing, adding to the oppressive atmosphere of the space and creating a sense that he is the last person left in this once vibrant place, now lost and alone amidst silent decay.
For decades, department stores were central landmarks and vital attractions in urban life. However, changes in consumer behaviour – driven by the rise of online shopping and the relocation of shopping centres to the suburbs – have led to increasing urban vacancies. These abandoned buildings reflect a dilemma facing many cities: empty spaces, a lack of commercial activity and declining footfall. This situation raises fundamental questions: How can public spaces be used in the future? How do changing consumption patterns affect the function and vibrancy of urban life? It also highlights the increasing commercialisation and capitalist exploitation of urban spaces.
As part of the exhibition, a roundtable discussion entitled ‚The Value of Vacant Spaces – Opportunities for City and Culture‘ will take place with Thorsten Erl, Simon Neumayer and other guests. The exhibition will close on 8 December at 4 pm with a guided tour by curator Jennifer Cierlitza. The exhibition is supported by Kunststiftung NRW and Stiftung Kunstfonds.
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Text by Estelle Hoy
Last Call: Platform Unknown
“On the train, we swapped seats. You wanted the window, and I wanted to look at you.”
― Mahmoud Darwish
A lifetime’s worth of silver dust settles on the endless um’s and ah’s of Lena Marie Emrich’s exhibition BRACE BRACE, filling her images and sculptures with all the infinitesimal speculative dreaming found in departure. Her proneness to detachment is an enigmatic discovery of life’s limbos, unknown destinations, a love of uncertainty, and interstitial community stirrings that posture viewer-as-traveller. Travellers examine the environment and social conditions more closely than their usual inhabitants, who barely winch or flap at the particular whistles of their mise-en- scène, tragic or otherwise. Aching with last-minute curiosity, she transforms into a pilgrim herself, with long tears on overnight trains, an outlaw, a nomad, fleeing, exiled in soft cruelty, slightly bent on orange sunsets and the poetic clicks of foreign tongues. What are our chances of survival when fleeing just about everything? All we really want is tenderness.
BRACE BRACE (2024), Emrich yells at us, photographing performance artist Bianca LeeVasquez in the clammy contortions instructed by inflight stewards to shoulder impacts we’re unlikely to withstand. LeeVasquez is vaguely secure herself, crouched over an empty burgundy wine crate and drill case, doubled over in origami folds, breathing in chaosmic spasms. Choosing to breathe is an exceptional talent that depends entirely on the skill of the creator and their proximity to death. We familiarize ourselves with the brace position, time and time again, watching it performed dutifully, forms we’ll doubtfully ever execute, and if ever we do, the image’s victory is a near laughable delusion. Viewing the large-scale photographs floating behind the fragility of glass, our minds are lost to sugary dreams of viable survival; humans drape themselves in the stink and blood of hope, respiring over the turbulent refrain of rationality.
Emrich re-orients herself through the windowless poem of Palestinian-born Mahmoud Darwish, “A seat on a train” (2002), which inspired the show. His song is from a people tens of thousands of years old, their quest for love, and the poetry of displacement, shattering limits, borders, and escaping the rude measure of time. Faraway rail tracks where Darwish details exile, expulsion, the groundwork of collective memories, our abject pursuit of love and empathy, and all the addresses we’ve lost to nostalgia—missed connections. It’s an urgent matter, his sonorous railway; with unsteady response and empty upturned pockets, we woefully distance ourselves. We can’t breathe, but this is arbitrary.
Trapping us in marginal territory, Emrich installs the precise form of aeroplane tray tables to perfect scale, coated with metallic varnish for Back Seat Series (2024). Emulating the minimal storm of Darwish’s quiet, stationed movements, nominal and feint, the artist proclaims solidarity with the breathless language of stillness. Folding trays are closed for ascension and descent, so we lean into the chants of the attendants, the stewards of perfect time, reshuffling ourselves on cramped chairs over and over in wait. Waiting for words of permission to unfold our silver platters, awaiting the social body to act in unison, awaiting instruction: our incurable malady. The price of flying-drinks is highway robbery; the price of breathing is living– a wobbly pursuit. Passengers stare at their handles, hour upon hour, our so-called agency melts into Emrich’s skillful sculptures, draped in past stories: a sentimental rosé scarf of her grandmother, brisk branch, a necklace. What is our greatest nostalgia? It’s our favored medium, a wanderer’s experiment, one curious and distant affect; we know that.
Brutish air fails to bowl from abstracted metallic hand dryers that arrow down in sharp gasps for V Series (2024). Emrich confronts us with a sculptural tete-à-tete that declines the violent yet efficacious air to come– the premonition of possible harmony inscribed in present chaos. Potential but foreclosed passageways where she counsels us: embrace the chaos, and it will paint the prose of purpose. Breath is more expressive than words, a marvelous phenomenon down on all fours, barking and foaming at the mouth, praising its hopeful success in pure equanimity. Did Emrich say that poetry can be defined? She did not.
Poetry is truly nothing.
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.