“Things can be freer and reach higher when they conceal themselves.”–Rita Ackermann
Rita Ackermann was born in Budapest in 1968 and today lives and works in New York. Arriving in America from Hungary in the early 1990s, she is immediately faced with a major challenge: to be able to survive in a foreign country as a young artist, she must be able to integrate the aesthetics of her cultural background together with what the new country offers her in her artistic practice. Her first drawings and paintings made between 1993 and 1996 show adolescent female figures multiplied within the composition and engaged in various self-destructive activities, expressed to the public through understandable and direct language. About twenty years later Ackermann abandons the figure and develops the series of works he entitles Mama, a set of compositions in which lines and gestures, figures and motifs rise to the surface of the canvas to then dissolve and reappear elsewhere. On the occasion of the exhibition at MASI Lugano, in 2022 Ackermann begins a new series of paintings entitled War Drawings, where oil, grease pencil and acrylic are heavily worked on rough linen canvas. In these works, the figures get lost and the lines are scraped away to reveal fragmented compositions.
Published on the occasion of the artist’s solo exhibition at the MASI in Lugano, entitled Hidden, this book contains reproductions of all the works in the exhibition and others selected personally by the artist.
Text by Pamela Kort, a conversation between Rita Ackermann and Donatien Grau.
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 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 LAND, CINECYCLE , 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.
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.
Motto is pleased to invite you to the book presentation of
Merci Danke Grazie by Sophia Eisenhut, Olga Hohmann, Simon Freund, Leonie Herweg, Paul Jürgens Published by windpark books, 2022
Reading & talk with the authors and designers
Friday 31 March 2023 from 6 pm
Motto (im Hinterhaus) Skalitzer Str. 68 10997 Berlin
Merci Danke Grazie Authors: Sophia Eisenhut, Olga Hohmann, Simon Freund, Leonie Herweg, Paul Jürgens Publisher: windpark books Year: 2022 Pages: 320 Dimensions: 10.5 x 16 cm Language: German ISBN: 978-3-949363-99-3
ca. 100 dog bags collected by Simon Freund, curated by Leonie Herweg, typeset by Paul Jürgens, with texts by Sophia Eisenhut and Olga Hohmann, published by windpark books.
Sophia Eisenhut is an artist and author of theory and prose. In 2021, her volume EXERCITIA S. Catarinae de Manresa: Anorexia and the State of God was published by Merve Verlag.
Olga Hohmann writes essays, short stories, columns and texts for performances. She lives and works in Berlin.
Simon Freund, lives and works without a permanent residence. Freund’s work is available free of charge to all, especially online at simonfreund.xyz. Freund is supported by several patrons with 1€ per month, no more – no less.
Leonie Herweg studied International Relations in Geneva and Tokyo. She participated in various curatorial projects.
Paul Jürgens is a designer who lives and works in Vienna and Cologne.
Please join us for the book launch of ANSKA with author Agnė Juodvalkytė and a performance by Tania Elstermeyer.
Friday 17 February 2023 from 6 pm
Motto (im Hinterhaus) Skalitzer Str. 68 Berlin, 10997
Agnė Juodvalkytė (b. 1987, Vilnius, Lithuania) is a visual artist currently living in Berlin and Vilnius. Her practice is focused on abstract painting and textiles mostly. She received BA in Painting at the Vilnius Academy of Arts (2010) and studied Visual Arts in Spain at the Universidad de Castilla La Mancha (UCLM, Cuenca) (2009). Her recent shows include solo exhibition Tools for the Future (ANSKA) at Galerie Bernau, Bernau bei Berlin (2022); Sweet Dreams Foundation at Nida Art Colony, Nida (2022); ‘Gathering’ at Atletika, Vilnius (2021); ANSKA at Blake & Vargas, Berlin (2021); group show Audra at Pamario gallery, Juodkrantė (2021); Terpė at (AV17) gallery, Vilnius (2020).
Tania Elstermeyers textual compositions bring registers of lyrical writing to mind, which are performed in alliance to a distinctive kind of music beyond established genres. During her performances, sceneries resemblant of theater backdrops are created, ultimately by operating with a vocabulary that is minimalism. Her work slivers traditional outlines of narrator and spectatorship by luring oneself into spaces of intimacy that attract interest and cause discomfort. (Text by Oliver Wellmann)
Authors: Agnė Juodvalkytė Publisher: Year: 2023 Pages: 224 Dimensions: 17 x 24 cm Language: English ISBN: 978-3-00-074288-0
Edited by Philippe Gerlach and Agnė Juodvalkytė Design by Marijn Degenaar Texts by Brad Feuerhelm, Juri Marian Gross, Marija Repšytė, and Nele Ruckelshausen
Through photographs of the studio process and visual sketches the first publication ANSKA by artist Agnė Juodvalkytė offers an overview of the artist’s studio practice from the past years while creating a sensory world of recollection. The book marks the conclusion of the ANSKA cycle in her work.
“In Agnė Juodvalkytė’s work, the weave that is bound by cloth, ash, dirt, and dye, invokes memory, utility, and hand-infused labor. The stains, folds, and strained fraying edges of her chosen material are also infused, caked, and distressed to provide new readings of production. There is something familiar in her use of textiles. Each fold of fabric is detailed by a weave birthed from the center spiraling out in an obstinate mosaic of emotion wrought from the plunder of self.” — Brad Feuerhelm
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
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
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.
For December 2022 Music Mix we hosted Broshuda on a two-day residence at Motto’s store. The artist created a mix featuring music from our latest arrivals.
In Nazi Germany, at least 10.000 physically and mentally disabled children and adolescents, including orphans, misfits, and other ethnic groups were murdered as part of an ideology based on social Darwinism. For the first time in history physicians, nurses, and midwives killed by lethal injection, gas poisoning or starvation. It predated the genocide of European Jewry by approximately two years. A rehearsal for the planners of the final solution. NUMB is a study of the forgotten children of World War II.
French artist duo, Wolfsko, use mediums of expression such as photography, text, drawing, painting and collage. Their work is a long study in the world of unhappy childhood, exploring themes such as love, fear, and survival. Wolfsko currently live and work in Berlin.
