Nothing – Liza Kin

Posted in art, Exhibition, Motto Berlin store on January 2nd, 2024
Tags: , , ,

Nothing exhibition / Liza Kin @ Motto Berlin

from 10.10 until 11.11.2023

Cut Cube book launch / Sandra Peters & Adam Feldmeth @ Motto Berlin. Wednesday, 02 August 2023.

Posted in architecture, Artist Book, Book launch, design, graphic design, Motto Berlin event, Motto Berlin store, Motto Books on July 28th, 2023
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Dear Friends,

please join us on August 2, 2023 at 7:00pm at Motto Books, Berlin for a conversation with Sandra Peters and Adam Feldmeth to present Peters’ new book Cut Cube.

The book Cut Cube, (2022) results from Sandra Peters’ interest in the graphic interplay between two- and three-dimensional structures. The 11 possible ways to unfold a cube are laid out on white paper, whereas the seven cuts that make it possible to unfold a cube are printed on transparent paper and related to each of the six sides of each flattened cube. Turning pages generates a flow of information to make the viewer aware of the complex interplay between both types of structures. 

The book is published with Motto Books, Berlin/Lausanne. A book signing will follow the discussion.

Sandra Peters is an artist, writer, and educator based in Abu Dhabi, UAE. In her work she focuses on architecture and urban space. She is working towards a reciprocal integration of sensual, structural, and conceptual factors.

Peters has widely presented her work in Europe, the US, and the United Arab Emirates, including Performing the City at the NYUAD Project Space in Abu Dhabi (2023); Un–folded Cube (landscape mode) at Foyer-LA, Los Angeles (2023); Bilateral, Diagonal, Cubical at the Gallery Aanant & Zoo, Berlin (2012) and participated in the group exhibition Erschaute Bauten. Architektur im Spiegel zeitgenössischer Kunstfotografie at the MAK—Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst/Gegenwartskunst (2011).
She is teaching at New York University Abu Dhabi since 2014 in the Art and Art History Program, where she is Co-program head since 2021.

Adam Feldmeth lives in Los Angeles and Berlin. His work engages the social elasticity of art through situational discourse with those involved in its materialization. Critical contributions have been included at the Luminary Projects, St. Louis, Missouri; Contemporary Art Daily; the MAK Center, Los Angeles; Kunstbibliothek Sitterwerk, St. Gallen, Switzerland; Overgaden Institute for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen; the Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University; and the 53rd Venice Biennale of Art. In 2008, he co-authored, “Nomad Post School,” with Guan Rong and in 2020 “Some Pedagogies of the Southland Institute” with Joe Potts

He is co-director of the Southland Institute in Los Angeles, teaches Film/Media studies at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, California, and is a doctoral student at the European Graduate School where he is considering the cobblestone as a mediator of momentum at the confluence of urban space and cinematic montage.

Park 2 INN Exhibition opening / Louise Verstraete, Rebecca Quix @ Motto Berlin. July 30, 2023.

Posted in art, exhibitions, Motto Berlin event, Motto Berlin store, Motto Books, photography on June 30th, 2023
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Dear Friends,

We are excited to invite you to the opening of Park 2 INN on Saturday, July 1st from 7PMa duo exhibition by Louise Verstraete and Rebecca Quix in the presence of Nissan Sunny 1.4LX and a sound installation by Lukas Katzer.

It has been a while since we have seen each other. How are you doing? I’m sorry to call you so early. Holiday schedules. MidDay sMiles. Days go by so fast. I was eating these curly fries and was thinking of you today. Lunch hour at the fuel station.  The connection got lost. My tires were losing pressure. Are you here already? Here is still there. Soon there. 

The exhibition will be on view from July 1, Monday to Saturday 12 to 8 PM until July 31, 2023. This exhibition has been made possible with the support of Flanders State of the Art.

Louise Verstraete is a multidisciplinary artist working with the medium of textile and the performative power that the medium carries within. Her projects show an interplay between photography, textiles, scenography and performative interventions. Louise holds an MFA in Textile Design from LUCA School of Arts, Belgium and currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.   

Rebecca Quix (BE) currently lives and works in Brussels. She holds an MFA from LUCA School of Arts, Brussels (2022) and studied at the School of Visual Arts, New York (2021). She is the founder of the project space, Nissan Sunny 1.4LX. 

Hunting-Gathering finissage / Eldar Tagi, Lena Pozdnyakova, and Stas Shärifullin (HMOT) @ Motto Berlin. June 27, 2023.

Posted in exhibitions, Motto Berlin event, Motto Berlin store, music on June 26th, 2023
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Dear Friends,

We are excited to invite you to the finissage event of Lena Pozdnyakova’s “Hunting-Gathering” exhibition, featuring live performances by Eldar Tagi, Lena Pozdnyakova, and Stas Shärifullin (HMOT). The evening also marks the release of New r Age, ME003 (Motto Editions) by Eldar Tagi, Lena Pozdnyakova, and Japanese-American multi-instrumentalist & composer Patrick Shiroishi, based in Los Angeles.

Organised by Liza Kin.

Join us on Tuesday, June 27th, at 7:30 PM at Motto Books Berlin.

Eldar Tagi, a multi-instrumentalist and composer originally from Kazakhstan, is now based in Berlin, Germany. His live improvised performances use a range of instruments, including computers, field recordings, analog modular synthesizers, daxophone, guitars, other stringed instruments, found objects, and self-made sound-makers.

Lena Pozdnyakova, an artist, curator, and researcher from Almaty, Kazakhstan, explores the culture-nature dichotomy, the Anthropocene, and the boundary between life and art in her collaborative projects and research. She is also 50% of thezwo duo with Eldar Tagi.

Stas Shärifullin, aka HMOT, is a Basel-based musician, researcher and artist working with sound and decoloniality. Born in Central Siberia, with Bashqort roots, Stas is studying the political potential of various musical and listening practices through live performances, lectures, interventions and sound installations focused on the issues of extractivism, identity-based oppression, collective memory and militant (sonic) ethnography: action-as-research, research-as-action.

We hope to see you at Motto Books on Tuesday, June 27th at 7:30 PM for an exciting evening of live performances and art.

New r Age. Eldar Tagi, Lena Pozdnyakova, Shiroishi Alto. Motto Editions.

Posted in cassette, Motto Berlin event, Motto Berlin store, Motto Books, music, Shiroishi Alto on June 16th, 2023
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Side A: 
Quantum Echoes Pt. 1……..10.44 
Quantum Echoes Pt. 2……..8.42 

Side B: 
The Spirit Channel Pt. 1……..11.24 
The Spirit Channel Pt. 2……..8.54 

Patrick Shiroishi Alto Saxophone, Voice 
Lena Pozdnyakova – Amplified Objects 
Eldar Tagi – Serge and Ciat-Lonbarde synthesizers, Daxophone, Shtar 

Production, Mastering – Eldar Tagi 
Recorded in Los Angeles, CA July 11, 2021 

Cover Design: Lena Pozdnyakova 
Image Source: Painting by Liza Kin (“Eine Linie” series) 

Motto Editions

‘New r Age’ is the follow-up collaborative album from composers and improvisers Eldar Tagi and Patrick Shiroishi. This time around, they’re joined by interdisciplinary artist and researcher Lena Pozdnyakova, bringing a fresh twist to their creative partnership. The recording took place on a sunny afternoon on July 11th, 2021, in a cozy apartment in Los Angeles’ Rampart Village—a place Tagi and Pozdnyakova used to call home for several years before moving to Berlin.

In this recording, the trio used a broad range of sounds. Shiroishi contributed his expert alto saxophone skills, sometimes blending his voice with the music. Tagi experimented with a variety of instruments such as the daxophone and Shtar, as well as Ciat-Lonbarde and Serge synthesizers. Pozdnyakova, on the other hand, added her unique touch by incorporating noises from amplified everyday objects.

The result is a blend of sounds that shift and change in intensity, keeping listeners on their toes. While the raw energy of the improvised performances is still front and center, additional layers of electronic tones and careful post-processing give the recording an extra amount of density and dimension. So, sit back and enjoy this unique sonic experience that “New r Age” offers.

About the artists:

Patrick Shiroishi is a Japanese-American multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Los Angeles.

Lena Pozdnyakova is a Kazakhstan-born interdisciplinary artist and researcher currently based in Berlin, Germany.

Eldar Tagi is a Kazakhstan-born multi-instrumentalist and composer currently based in Berlin, Germany.

Order here

Chromacolor – Hanno Leichtmann (vinyl)

Posted in Motto Berlin store, music, Vinyl on June 1st, 2023
Tags: , , , , , ,

»Chromacolor« is one of those records that immediately feels like home even though it is hard to locate stylistically. Written and recorded by Hanno Leichtmann in Berlin and Madeira between 2020 and 2022, it draws on rhythmic minimalism as a guiding principle and might call to mind organic, instrument-based ambient music, but also incorporates jazzy moments as well as Annie Garlids multi-layered vocals that permeate through these nine pieces.

The foundation for Leichtmann’s Chromacolor project was laid when the prolific Berlin-based producer, musician, and drummer borrowed a vibraphone and a Fender Rhodes from two friends. Combining their unique sonic affordances with those of a Guitaret, an electric lamellophone, he further expanded his sound palette by inviting other musicians—Anthea Caddy, Sabine Vogel, Tobias Delius, Els Vandeweyer, Sabine Ercklentz, Mike Majkowski, Andrei Ladeishchikov, Oona Farchy, Gonçalo Caboz as well as Rafael and Hugo Andrade—to play small but vital parts in the production of the album.

The opener »Kisses and Wine« masterfully sets the tone for an album that is as inviting as it is challenging. Working with relaxed repetitive rhythms, Garlid’s anthemic vocals and a sprinkle of saxophone and flute tones courtesy of Delius and Vogel, respectively, as well as tender piano notes played by Leichtmann, it evokes a lot with only few means: a certain melancholy, but also an elevated atmosphere that feels both exuberant and restrained. Leichtmann’s elegant study of the power of repetition, minute rhythmic shifts and subtle use of melodic and harmonic elements creates ambiguities and polyvalences like these throughout the entire record, up until its understated finale, aptly titled »A Beautiful Day«—a drone-jazz piece, if you will, both longing and joyful. As an album, »Chromacolor« is hard to pigeonhole, but rich and rewarding. All it takes is immersing yourself in it.

Order here

Tasman Richardson + Jubal Brown. Saturday May 13 @ Motto Berlin.

Posted in film, Motto Berlin event, Motto Berlin store on May 11th, 2023
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dear friends,

Motto is pleased to invite you to the film screening and double book presentation of

Objects in Mirror 
by Tasman Richardson 
Published by Impulse [b], 2023

Tasman Richardson is his memory of screens. Video from cathode ray to capacitive pixels shapes his language, directs his understanding, and ultimately borders his imagination. Building on McLuhan’s statement “We become what we behold”, Richardson shuttles through the history of tele-vision and tele-presence, postulating consciousness itself as Gysin-esque “cut-up” collage. Fragmented, digressive, and occasionally manic, Objects In Mirror refracts autoethnography into a technicolour meditation on our mediated world. An intimate and humourous technical-mystical delving into a distrust of all things perceived both in life and art.

&

DIE SCUM: Sex & Drugs & Contemporary Art
by Jubal Brown 
Published by Impulse [b], 2023

DIE SCUM, Sex & Drugs & Contemporary Art is the debut novel by artist and iconoclast Jubal Brown, a post-post-modern love story of the drug dealer to the art scene and his paranoid deluge through alcoholic-depression to redemption and personal agency. A 60,000 word auto-fiction confessional of addiction, to drugs and alcohol but, ultimately an examination of addiction to dysfunctional relationships, unhealthy ideals and behaviours, the performance of identity, and the failure of masculinity.

The reading will be followed by film screenings of Richardson and Brown’s video work.

Tasman Richardson & Jubal Brown have been producing video work, sometimes collaborating, for 25+ years, originating in the 1990s with a unique high energy style of experimental video: A/V, audio-visual, or visual music – also known as JAWA, the recombinant montage of appropriated television&movies treated as raw material, sampled and remixed to build compositions engaging the lexicon of contemporary media culture.

This short program will showcase a selection of video work from the past and present.

About the authors: 

Tasman Richardson 

Tasman Richardson began pioneering his audio/visual cut up method known as Jawa in 1996, later co-founding FAMEFAME media arts collective in 2002, co-creating international a/v tournament Videodrome with cohorts Jubal Brown, Elenore Chesnutt, and Josh Avery, and launching abstract, anonymous live showcase The New Flesh in 2011. His critique of mediated gaze through installation debuted with 2,000 square foot Necropolis (Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, 2012) and bookended with Kali Yuga (Arsenal Contemporary, Montreal, 2019, and Toronto, 2021). Objects In Mirror (2023, Impulse[b]) is his first book, and continues his critical response to recordings which he dubs “contemporary necromancy.”

Jubal Brown 
Jubal Brown is a producer and presenter of contemporary art & events culture, and writer based in Toronto, Canada. A/V video-maker of over 50 short works screened or performed in Toronto, New York, Paris, London, etc. Brown has programmed with established institutions and underground venues including ART SYSTEM, GALLERY DEATH FAMEFAME, PLEASUREDOME,  Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (Now MOCA ) DOUBLE DOUBLE LANDCINECYCLE , and many more. Past projects include Toronto’s legendary event series at abandoned industrial sites WASTELAND… museum vomit intervention RESPONDING to ART, The Cultural Centre ART SYSTEM, multi-media label FAMEFAME, relational aesthetics collaborative The LAND of the LOST, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art’s live audio/visual event series VIDEODROME and the rhythmic noise club night SHIT FUN. In Canadian Art Magazine R.M. Vaughan called him “the dark prince of Toronto art.” Vocationally a Social Service Worker and Addictions Counsellor Brown’s current work deals with addiction, dysfunctional relationships, depression and mental health issues, as well as an extreme individualist canon of iconoclasm, revolution, and nihilism, love and anger, resistance and freedom. His first novel DIE SCUM Sex & Drugs & Contemporary Art is available in paperback and e-book at IMPULSE-b , publisher of artists’ books and multiples.

April 2023 Music Mix

Posted in Motto Berlin event, Motto Berlin store, music, Uncategorized on May 3rd, 2023
Tags: , , , , , ,

Dear friends, 

We are pleased to share with you Motto’s April 2023 Music Mix, published on the occasion of the exhibition “STEPPUBLISHER” organized by Ho King Man, at Motto Berlin.

Listen to the Watt Chapter 1 mix here

Listen to the Watt Chapter 2 mix here

Listen to the Watt Chapter 3 mix here

10.02.2023 from 7pm: “Ein Jahrhundert der verletzten Männer / A century of injured men” and “Art&Girls” book launch @ Motto Berlin

Posted in art, Artist Book, Book launch, books, events, Motto Berlin event, Motto Berlin store, Uncategorized on February 7th, 2023
Tags: , , , , , , ,


Please join us for the book launch of

Ein Jahrhundert der verletzten Männer / A century of injured men
Bernhard Cella
Published by Album Verlag, 2022

Art&Girls
_
Published by Salon für Kunstbuch, 2022

10 February 2023
from 7pm


Motto Berlin
Skalitzer Str. 68 (im Hinterhaus)
10997 Berlin


Links:
Bernhard Cella
un.titled
art.n.girls
Album Verlag
Salon für Kunstbuch

Ein Jahrhundert der verletzten Männer / A century of injured men

Authors: Bernhard Cella
Publisher: Salon für Kunstbuch
Year: 2022
Pages: 152
Dimensions: 12.8 x 20 cm
Language: English / German
ISBN: 978-3-85164-210-0

Order the book here

Bernhard Cella’s sweeping pictorial documentary of convalescent men present us with an iconography of a century of medical progress and, by the same token, with a typology of the mise en scenes of soon-to-be homecoming patients. These staged pictures open up a counter narrative to that of vigorous, unscathed, and invulnerable masculinity. They invariably invoke calamitous moments, sustained injuries, the scars of war as well as the causes and circumstances preceding a fateful event that no camera was there to capture. Their insistence on calm, deceleration, casual gestures, and lightheartedness in the photographer’s presence cannot hide this fact. Or, as Paul Virilio put it, “images are ammunition, cameras are weapons.”

Bernhard Cellas Panoptikum an rekonvaleszenten Männern – quer durch ein Jahrhundert – demonstriert nicht nur eine Ikonografie des medizinischen Fortschritts und die Typologie der mise en scène der bald wieder in den Alltag Zurückkehrenden. Es legt in seiner jeweiligen Inszenierung auch einen Bruch offen, der dem Bild der vitalen, unversehrten und unverletzbaren Männlichkeit zuwiderläuft. Jedes fotografische Abbild trägt in sich unweigerlich auch den Moment des Unfalls, der Verwundung, der Kriegsverletzung, bei dem kein Aufnahmeapparat zugegen war. Die Insistenz auf Ruhe, Entschleunigung, Unbefangenheit und Unbeschwertheit für das Objektiv kann nicht drüber hinwegtäuschen. Oder wie Paul Virilio formulierte: “Bilder sind Munition, Kameras sind Waffen”.

Art&Girls 

Authors: _
Publisher: Salon für Kunstbuch
Year: 2023
Pages: 204
Dimensions: 14.8 x 10.5 cm
Language: English / German
ISBN: 978-3-902374-23-3

Text by Valie Djordjević
Translation by Andrea Scrima

Order the book here

We see women looking at art, everything an exhibition has to offer: paintings, sculptures, installations. If we’re women, then one could say they’re women looking at women looking at art. And if the Instagram account “art.n.girls,” which reposts images of women looking at art, is also art, then we have women looking at art in which women are looking at art. The images are gleaned from the Instagram accounts of museums, galleries, art magazines, art blogs, and auction houses. Women looking at art embody a particular image of commodified femininity that shows its bourgeois roots. Thus, they reflect the commodification of an art that’s become a mere investment. Their bearing in these PR photos is receptive, moved, submissive, and might be intended as a stand-in for the artwork’s aura, but ultimately it remains empty and devoid of meaning.

Wir sehen Frauen, die sich Kunst anschauen – alles, was die Ausstellungsorte so hergeben: Gemälde, Skulpturen, Installationen. Wenn wir Frauen sind, dann könnte man sagen, hier schauen Frauen sich Frauen an, die auf Kunst schauen. Und wenn der Instagram Account “art.n.girls,” der Bilder von Frauen repostet, die sich Kunst anschauen, auch Kunst ist, dann schauen Frauen auf Kunst, auf der Frauen Kunst anschauen. Die Bilder stammen aus Instagram Accounts von Museen, Galerien, Kunstzeitschriften, Kunstblogs oder Auktionshäusern. Die Kunst schauenden Frauen verkörpern ein ganz bestimmtes Bild von warenförmiger Weiblichkeit, die ihre bourgeoise Herkunft nicht versteckt. Sie spiegeln damit die Warenförmigkeit einer Kunst, die lediglich Investitionsobjekt ist. Ihre Haltung in diesen PR-Fotos – empfänglich, bewegt und unterwürfig – soll möglicherweise als Surrogat der Aura des Kunstwerks dienen, bleibt aber letztendlich leer und ohne Bedeutung.



January 2023 Music Mix

Posted in cassette, Motto Berlin store, music, vinyl on January 21st, 2023
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

6 Graphic Etudes, Richard Scott, arbitrary, 2022


Dear friends and colleagues, 

We hope you had a great start to 2023!

After a very brief hiatus we are back on deck and ready to share with you our newest musical arrivals. Make sure to check Motto’s full catalogue for an immersive experience and our Motto Disco page, revived and refreshed especially for your ears.

To hear a selection of sounds from these albums, follow this link to our new mix created by Max Parnell.

The mix features sounds from:

King Gong
Accou
Richard Scott
Kristen Oppenheim
YL Hsueh
Vladislav Delay & Eivind Aarset
Sonic Boom / Papiro
DJ Fusiller x Fusiller

We hope you enjoy!