English
Deutsch
until 26.10. | #2551ARTatBerlin | KLEMM’S currently presents the exhibition Form, Class & Beauty – iniated by Viktoria Binschtok with works by the artists Gabriele Beveridge, Viktoria Binschtok, Ulrich Lamsfuß and Ken Lum.
Our image-based reality lays the ground and provides the necessary input for the mixed media works that compose the exhibition Form, Class & Beauty. Through a diverse repertoire of appropriation strategies, public images are shifted into new contexts of meaning, which block themselves against obvious associations. The fusion of photography with text, algorithms, painting, and object leads to various combinations and opens up alternative perspectives on familiar representations.
Those are above all stereotypical representations of beauty, status, gender, etc… that dominate our urban and social environments (online and offline). They manifest cultural codes that set the bar of ideal existence in a system. Everything that cannot be seen in the general canon of images is also socially marginalized.
The artistic rearrangement of the fragments of our visual culture is staged here in what can be understood as aesthetically seductive assemblages – however, it does not exclude a critical examination of its impact.
Viktoria Binschtok, August 2019
Gabriele Beveridge (b. 1985, Hong Kong) lives and works in London, UK. Gabriele’s recent solo exhibitions include Skin for Either One, Deweer Gallery, Otegem, Belgium (2019), Live Dead World at Seventeen, London, UK (2018), Soft Shrinking Tremor at Parisian Laundry, Montreal, Canada (2017), Eternity Anyways at Chewday’s, London, UK (2016), Mainland at MOT, Brussels, Belgium (2015), and Health and Strength at La Salle de Bains, Lyon (2014).
Viktoria Binschtok (b. 1972, Moscow) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Recent exhibitions include Anxiety of Images, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan (2019), OSMOSCOSMOS, Centre de la Photographie Genève, Switzerland (2019), Pumps & Globes, Museum Folkwang Essen, Germany (2018) and L’image volée, Fondazione Prada Milan, Italy (2016).
Ulrich Lamsfuß (b. 1971, Bonn) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Exhibitions showing his work include Figures de l’animal, CAC Meymac, Meymac, France (2019), Cappuccetto Rosso at Templon, Brussels, Belgium (2018), Schau 3, Kunsthaus Kollitsch, Klagenfurt, Austria (2017), and books + papers at Christine König Galerie, Vienna, Austria (2015).
Ken Lum (b. 1956, Vancouver) lives and works in Philadelphia, USA. His work has been shown in several solo exhibitions including “What’s old is old for a dog”, The Wattis Institute, San Francisco, US (2018), Royale Projects at Expo Chicago, Chicago, US (2017), BASE/Progetti per l’arte, Florence, Italy (2016) and Vienna Kunsthalle at Karlsplatz Public Space, Vienna (2015).
Part parallel and accompanying to the exhibition, Ken Lum’s poster “Melly Shum hates her job” was shown at Moritzplatz, corner Prinzessinnenstraße in cooperation with Galerie NagelDraxler (31.08.-21.09.2019).
Ken Lum, Melly Shum hates her job, 1989/2019, billboard, courtesy by the artist and Galerie NagelDraxler
“Since 1989 “Melly Shum” hates her job; since 1990 she does so publicly and permanently in the form of a Billboard at the Witte de With in Rotterdam.
Initially, the composition of text and image was supposed to be shown on the museum’s front only for the duration of the exhibition. After its removal, however, several residents asked for the artwork to be re-installed. Fortunately, the museum took side with the protesters. It was clear that many citizens missed the smiling lady, who dared, despite her smile, to verbalize in capital letters, that she “hates” her job.
With “Melly”, Ken Lum has hit a nerve that reached beyond its art-context and led to a surprising display of solidarity by the people. Considering the pressure suffered by most people at work, this isn’t surprising. And then there is discrimination, sexual harassment, low pay, draining shift-work, bullying at work, burn-out etc., all of them capable of spoiling any job and making people ill.
As for Melly’s reasons to hate her job, one can only speculate. The setting that surrounds her evokes an office job in the 1980s, shortly before the rise of globalization which kept accelerating everyone’s working life through a new form of interconnectedness.
30 years later, the imaginary icon still resonates. Today, hashtags like #mondayblues und #thankgoditsfriday are used to express frustrations at the start of the week or else, pleasant anticipations of the weekend. Terms like “multi-jobbing”, “patched-worked-income” or “bullshit-jobs” are on the rise and reflect a state of “new realities”, which is quite worth criticizing when it comes to the much debated “future of work”.
This might be an occasion to think about one’s own response to the system of our working life and to join us in celebrating Melly’s premiere in Berlin.”
Viktoria Binschtok, August 2019
Vernissage: Friday, 13 September 2019, 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Exhibition period: Friday, 13 September – Saturday, 26 October 2019
[maxbutton id=”61″]
Bildunterschrift: Courtesy of KLEMM’S
Exhibition Form, Class & Beauty – KLEMMS | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
