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.

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.

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04.04.2023 – 09.06.2023 @ Motto Berlin

STEPPUBLISHER

Ho King Man

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 – 03.04.2023 @ Motto Berlin

Ein Jahrhundert der Verletzten Männer / A Century of Injured Men

Bernhard Cella and Art&Girls

05.12.2023 – 09.02.2023 @ Motto Berlin

9 WINDOWS “STATE OF ART”

Mike Hentz

One space, One structure, A set of regulations.

Temporary City is an exhibition that starts from the basis: the artist. No theme or curator is involved. During the course of one week fifteen artists worked in the Atelierhof Kreuzberg and challenged, negotiated and discussed their practices in order to use these as a base to develop an exhibition. Their works were presented on an architectural structure, an ‘obstacle’ designed for the show. The result of this process could be seen during the exhibition Temporary City Berlin 2009.

Artists: Anton Cotteleer, Ilke De Vries, Yoko Enoki, Paul Hendrikse, Anouk Kruithof, Nicolas Leus, Katrin Plavcak, Olivier Schrauwen, Nele Tas, Iris Van Dongen, Stijn Van Dorpe, Ada Van Hoorebeke, Tamara Van San, Sarah Westphal, Nada Sebestyén.

Texts, Introduction: Nele Tas; Exhibition Diary: Christophe Van Gerrewey; No Such Things as a Plan: Andreas Müller; St Curatus at the Crossroads: Christoph Tannert.

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06.08.2022 – 04.12.2022 @ Motto Berlin

Dark Advances: ‘Affect Aliens’

Curated by Lilly Markaki

Anna Winslow, Candice Nembhard, Céline Mathieu, Danya, Genevieve Costello, Jesse Darling, Kari Rosenfeld, Kwamé Sorrell, Lilly Markaki, Lou Lou Sainsbury, Lucie de Bréchard, Spiros Kokkonis, Toni Brell

Dear friends,

Please join us for the opening of

9 WINDOWS
« STATE OF THE ART »
by Mike Hentz

Presentation of WORKS 8 publication, OSTINANKA silkscreen edition, a lecture performance, and concert by Mike Hentz and Misha Ognianer.

Sunday 4 December
from 5 pm

MOTTO BERLIN
Skalitzer Str. 68 (im Hinterhof)
10997 Berlin

Exhibition
5.12.22 – 28.1.23

This book is an anomalous and layered object. It is split into chapters, following the way the Matrice exhibition was developed and completed over many months of work. Some key phases in the construction of the project in fact took place in the period prior to its opening, in a form that straddles the private dimension of an artist’s work and the public dimension of the exhibition. As also discussed in the critical text, Jacopo moved his studio to the spaces of the Fondazione Carispezia in the months preceding its opening. Here, within a triangular, uterine structure, the physical ‘matrix’ of the exhibition to be precise, he produced most of the works that would then be exhibited. And indeed many things took place inside it. The catalogue thus attempts to account for all of this. The colour photographs were taken by photographer Andrea Rossetti to document the two moments in which the project came into being. The first is made up of the so-called ‘invisible exhibition’: in order to understand the genesis of Matrice, we in fact need to understand how the exhibition is the final result of the ‘real’ exhibition that no one but the artist and very few others had the pleasure of seeing. All the works in this closed space, built in the very heart of the Foundation space, were in fact displayed on the walls, yet destined never to be seen by any visitor and then to be brutally dismembered. As the photos show, the works displayed are covered with a series of sheets to prevent them from being seen during Jacopo’s performance a few days prior to the opening. Only the photographs installed horizontally above the sculptures are partially visible. In the centre of the room, on the other hand, we can still see the tools used in the creation of the works, and the musical instruments that would later be played during the performance. The second moment taken by Rossetti consists of the actual Matrice exhibition itself, which the public could then view during its opening months. Andrea is one of the world’s leading exponents of that fine art which is the documentation of artworks and especially of contemporary art exhibitions. It is indeed an approach that requires great sensitivity and critical outlook. It is a translation process in which a – fruitful – betrayal of the material to be translated is and always will be necessary. A loving and respectful betrayal which was indeed requested by Benassi when he brought Rossetti on board for this task. The two sections of the catalogue must therefore be seen as a true collaboration between the two, in the wake of the many already developed by Jacopo with other artists in the fields of performance and sound research. The black-and-white photographs in the book were instead all taken by Jacopo Benassi or devised, prepared and coordinated by him. They recount the most performative and moving moments of the exhibition and its making, and are very much integrated with Andrea Rossetti’s work, adopting the same brutality with which Jacopo intervened in the Foundation exhibition space.

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