With “wow! Woven? Entering the (sub)Textiles,” the Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien is presenting an exhibition that encompasses two of the venue’s levels. It is devoted to the diverse issues related to the position of “textiles” as medium and material in the exploration of contemporary art practices in this present age teeming with networking metaphors.
From the very beginning in nearly all cultures and with usage impacting society, textiles have been veritably predestined for being charged with political content, and for use and consideration even outside of artisan contexts and the related negotiability on an artistic level. In the recent past, numerous large and comprehensive exhibitions have carried out exacting surveys on the general familiarity of the textile, on its sensory qualities, its uniquely inscribed features, and its wealth of weaving types, textures, and works developed globally over the centuries. Such projects have contributed to a renaissance and re-evaluation of textiles and emphasised their natural tendency to challenge the classically hierarchical concepts of work, image, and object. “wow! Woven? Entering the (sub) Textiles” accentuates its exhibition focus by concentrating on works that foster aspects of an artistically investigative exploration of history, including the role of the textile industry within the capitalist form of commodity production and the means of organising production methods.
Exhibition participant Rubén Grilo, for example, emphasises with a series of denim fabric works the onset of industrialisation as a turning point in our relationship with technologies. Once synonymous with a durable fabric for the working class and later symbolic of the Western individualist promise of freedom, today the visible wear and tear of jeans is designed through digital processes and implemented using laser irradiation before even hitting the market. This act allows the factors previously specific to strong work-, body-, and time-related wear to degenerate through mere simulation and thus highlights the changing body-work relations. The artist Sascha Reichstein, in turn, presents a large installative video work “The Production of Tradition” focused on the outsourced production of traditional clothing by example of lederhosen in Sri Lanka. She for instance explores the dissolution of formerly prevalent workmanship forms aligned to local conditions and the concomitant loss of traditional artisan techniques, regional distinctions, and the ability to identifying goods with specific locales.
The far-reaching history of the precarious working conditions within the textile industry, still unchanged today, and of the revolutionary potential of the textile workers in countering such abuse are thematised by
Judith Raum. Presented in the exhibition, her research project “disestablish” takes the first weavers’ uprisings in fourteenth-century northern Italy as its point of departure and shows the textile to be a carrier material of social conflicts, with the artist using banners made of textile material to make this point.
The collaboration of Ines Doujak and John Barker in the form of the longstanding and still ongoing research project “LOOMSHUTTLES/WARPATHS” likewise examines the complex relations among fabric, clothing, and colonialism starting with the early forms of global capitalism. On the evening of the exhibition opening, shirts from the artists’ Haute Couture collection accompanying the project will be presented for sale as part of their exhibition presence. The shirts themselves represent a visualization of the the tight job-order calculations at the expense of safety precautions for the sewers employed at the textile mills.
Against this content-focused backdrop of the presented works, which particularly reflects on processes of production, “wow! Woven? Entering the (sub)Textiles” compiles a further variety of selected artworks that present a reflexive spectrum of textile use ranging between tangible material, meaning-laden medium, technique, and idea. The works of art thus embody the general fragility of the material, attempt mediatic translations, and confirm their enduring fascination, including extraordinary positions by Heidi Bucher, Sheila Hicks, Helena Huneke, and Ingrid Wiener.
Curated by Christian Egger

€10.00

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The official catalogue of Shinro Ohtake’s exhibition held at Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Kagawa, 2013.
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As the title suggests, “NEWNEW” consisted of only new, recent and never-exhibited works by the artist, deliberately placed throughout the museum to make the most of its unique locational environment and architectural structure.
The exhibited works included installations such as “MON CHERI: A Self-Portrait as a Scrapped Shed,” his contribution to Documenta 13, in addition to large-scale sculptures, collages, oil paintings, oversize drawings and small Gouache paintings on paper.
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The catalogue consists of separate sheets, leaflets and a DVD, tied together with a paper faster that is also detachable. Sorted according to their techniques or where they were exhibited, the works are reproduced either in the books or on the sheets. The DVD contains a video documentation of the exhibition from a visitor’s perspective, beginning from a front view of the museum to the deep end of its exhibition rooms.
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Larger than A3 in size, each of the eight sheets documents a different large-scale installation by the artist. With the front side covered by a full-bleed photo showing a whole picture of the work, they could be hung on a wall as a poster, while the back side shows details of the work and informs of other related works along with their captions. The three leaflets are formatted in different sizes; two feature image-based works (oil paintings / collages and drawings) and the other contains texts and reference data.

Printed and bound in Japan

€35.00

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Two independent publishers from Taiwan, Shen Shen Books and nos:books, have arrived in Berlin to showcase their exceptional works and publications at “The Calabash Show”, to take place at Motto Berlin from July 31 to August 30.

At The Calabash Show, the two publishers come to Berlin together with several of their artists. The show takes inspiration from an ancient mythical story about people entering the calabash for one day for spiritual practice. They left the calabash after many ordeals, without achieving immortality. When returned to the real world, one year had passed. At Motto Berlin,  the two mortal publishers and their artists present their latest works and publications, and share their thoughts behind the many ordeals of art and publishing.

Participating artists include Chihoi, Eva Lin, Ling Yu Tai, Pei Yu Shen, Son Ni and Ting Cheng.

The show is supported by the National Culture and Arts Foundation, Taiwan, and The Arts Development Fund of the Home Affairs Bureau, the Government of Hong Kong SAR.

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Two independent publishers from Taiwan, Shen Shen Books and nos:books, have arrived in Berlin to showcase their exceptional works and publications at “The Calabash Show”, to take place at Motto Berlin from July 31 to August 30.

At The Calabash Show, the two publishers come to Berlin together with several of their artists. The show takes inspiration from an ancient mythical story about people entering the calabash for one day for spiritual practice. They left the calabash after many ordeals, without achieving immortality. When returned to the real world, one year had passed. At Motto Berlin,  the two mortal publishers and their artists present their latest works and publications, and share their thoughts behind the many ordeals of art and publishing.

Participating artists include Chihoi, Eva Lin, Ling Yu Tai, Pei Yu Shen, Son Ni and Ting Cheng. Come and meet them in person at the opening on July 31 at 6pm-9pm at Motto Berlin. The show is supported by the National Culture and Arts Foundation, Taiwan, and The Arts Development Fund of the Home Affairs Bureau, the Government of Hong Kong SAR.

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THE CALABASH SHOW

Live DJ: Dan Raw 

Drink: Motto Bar

Publishers from Taiwan: Shen Shen Books, nos:books, Waterfall

“Invisible Beauty,” the title of this book and of the Iraqi Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, refers both to the unusual or unexpected subjects in the featured works and to the inevitable invisibility of Iraqi artists on the international stage. The endlessly interpretable title is intended to reveal different ways of approaching art generated by a country that has been subjected to war, genocide and, in the last year, the rise of Isis. The systematic demolition of the cultural heritage of Iraq by Isis has made it more important than ever to focus on artists continuing to work in Iraq. The Pavilion will provide a platform to make these artists visible. The five artists featured in the exhibition and in this volume are the photographers Latif Al Ani and Akam Shex Hadi, the visual artist Rabab Ghazoul, the ceramicist Salam Atta Sabri and the painter Haider Jabbar. A rich compilation of texts accompanies by Iraqi authors the artists’ sections, addressing the wider notion of “invisible beauty” and its ramifications: an essay on the cylinder seals of Iraq by Lamia Al-Gailani; “My Lost Hen,” a story by poet and writer Fares Haram; “The Infidel Woman,” a short tale by novelist Ali Bader; Sherko Bekas’s poem “During the Great Raid”; and “The Sign,” a play by Atyaf Rasheed. Co-published with the Ruya Foundation for Contemporary Culture in Iraq.

The Serial Universe by Alexandra Leykauf
on invitation by MOREpublishers at MOTTO Berlin

Exhibition extended until 07.02.2015

http://www.alexandraleykauf.com/
http://www.morepublishers.be/

(an edition published by MOREpublishers will be soon released on the occasion of the show)

The posters created by Martin Kippenberger (1953-1997) for his own exhibitions represent a core aspect of his multimedia output and artistic vision. The show You too will eventually come into fashion – Posters by Martin Kippenberger therefore reveals an essential slice of Kippenberger’s characteristic, often wildly absurd sense of humor.

The exhibition marks the Museum Folkwang´s acquisition of a comprehensive collection of posters by Martin Kippenberger in 2013 which substantially enhances the existing group of works by the artist held at the museum.

A catalogue is due for release to accompany the show, available from Edition Folkwang/Steidl.

Edited by Museum Folkwang
128 Pages
Paperback / softback
20.5 x 26.5 cm
German
ISBN 978-3-86930-923-1
€ 20.00

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buch 3b de 10. Kristen Mueller. & So.

buch 3b de 10 is the tenth in a series of books based on Dieter Roth’s bok 3b, a collection of comic book pages in which numerous holes were die cut before the pages were re-bound, published in the ‘Collected Works, Volume 7’ by edition hansjörg mayer in 1974. Using Roth’s book as a template, holes were hand-cut into a selection of papers found in books in Berlin. buch 3b de 10, exhibited from 17 October to 7 December 2014 in the vitrines lining Motto Berlin’s courtyard, consists of 56 double-page spreads which together form an entire 3b buch.

Each double-page spread consists of three unbound papers which can be folded as a 12-page booklet or displayed open as a single spread.

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The Reminder. Behnam Sadighi. Motto Books

This publication is part of the project The Reminder by Behnam Sadighi, conceived in the frame of the fellowship programme MOP CAP 2013 with an exhibition at The Showroom from September 8 – 13, 2014 and the residency programme Delfina Foundation in London.

From December 2013 to October 2014 Behnam Sadighi worked closely with curator and theorist Doreen Mende to develop his The Reminder project for the MOP CAP 2013 Winner’s Exhibition. Prior to the exhibition Behnam undertook a three-month residency at the Delfina Foundation. As part of the Prize a series of events including an exhibition, a panel discussion and a book launch formed Behnam Saidghi’s fellowship during his stay in London.

Sadighi’s work is founded in documentary photography. He develops his ideas through the phenomena of his surroundings caused by socio-political and cultural issues. The experiences that have the most powerful effects on Iranian lifestyle and relationships,  particularly in urban environments. These changes in phenomena and self, play an integral role in reflecting his personal interpretation of life and living.

The Reminder is an attempt towards an-other look at the Facebook profile pictures of Iran’s youth. Through a reconstruction of the portraits their authorship is lost in the midst of their innumerability. These pictures, usually taken as snapshots, seem to conceal the represented person as well as all of the elements that characterise them. Does such loss of the authorship and privation of representation occur because of the countlessness of the photographs, or is it because their viewers are skimming through them so quickly? Is it caused by a desire in making and/or representing a different sort of being in a matter of seconds? Or, it is such way of doing, a remembrance of an existence that shares the untold and the hidden in a corner of time?

(Each publication includes one poster from a series of eight.)

Language: English / Farsi

Size: 20 x 27.5 cm

ISBN: 9782940524297

€10.00

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