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until 21.07. | #2382ARTatBerlin | KINDL – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst shows from 10th March 2019 the solo exhibition Exhibit Model Four by the artist Jonathan Monk at Maschinenhaus M1. In parallel the group exhibition Behind the Screens with works by seven artists will be shown in the Maschinenhaus M2.
Exhibit Model Four (Solo Exhibtion at Maschinenhaus M1)
Under the title Exhibit Model Four – plus invited guests, the British artist Jonathan Monk is continuing his exhibition series, which has been shown since 2016 in various locations in modified forms, and which he has now conceptually expanded for the KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art.
Exhibit Model Four is an installation consisting of walls covered in photographic wallpaper throughout the exhibition space M1 in the Maschinenhaus at the KINDL. The photographs, mostly in black and white, show Monk’s works from the past twenty years in various exhibition contexts and spatial situations. By integrating these excerpts with the existing architecture of M1, the artist develops a completely new, complex spatial structure. The installation views have the appearance of compiled archival materials and are distilled into a place that demands a sharpened perception and specific orientation.
At the KINDL, Monk will combine these works, depicted on lengths of photographic paper, with artworks by other artists from his personal collection installed in the exhibition space. The works he selected—for instance, a readymade by Martin Kippenberger, a signed postcard by Gilbert & George, and a photograph by Dan Graham—come from his personal collection. In interaction with the two-dimensional photo installation, Jonathan Monk thus offers a multilayered take on the conditions of exhibiting and presenting art. In the interaction between the originals and reproductions of artworks, he negotiates fundamental questions about appropriation and authorship.
The exhibition is curated by Andreas Fiedler.
Jonathan Monk (*1969 in Leicester, UK) lives and works in Berlin. His works have been shown internationally in exhibitions including POWER TO THE PEOPLE (Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Frankfurt, 2018), The Knowledge (Meyer Riegger, Berlin, 2017), Exhibit Model Three (VOX, Montreal, 2017), Exhibit Model Two (Nicolai Wallner Gallery, Copenhagen, 2016), Exhibit Model One (Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel/Muttenz, 2016), The Deflated Inflated (Lisson Gallery, London, 2009), Time Between Spaces (Palais de Tokyo/Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, 2008), New Photography 2006 (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2006), and the 50th and 53rd Venice Biennale (Venice, 2003/2009).
Jonathan Monk, Exhibit Model Three, VOX, Courtesy of the artist. © Michel Brunelle.
!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Solve This Captcha Series, exhibition view, EPFL ArtLab, Lausanne, 2017. © Adrien Baraka.
Behind the Screen (Group Exhibition at Maschinenhaus M2)
with Constant Dullaart, Jonas Lund, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Gonzalo Reyes Araos, Tristan Schulze, Addie Wagenknecht, Julia Weißenberg
Technological change has made itself felt in all areas of our lives and is impacting social developments around the world. Life without the technical innovations of recent decades has become unimaginable. Although we as users of digital devices produce and consume several hundred megabytes of data every day, the digital realm remains invisible—and, for many, intangible.
The artists in the exhibition Behind the Screen examine what lies beyond the merely visible. With an awareness of how behaviour and thinking can be shaped by technological change, they use digital technologies and visual languages as a medium and tool of artistic processes. Beyond a mere reflection, their works make digital transformations visible in analogue form.
In works such as PVA Compositions (2017) and #brigading_conceit (2018), Constant Dullaart (*1979, lives and works in Berlin) explores digital identities as a currency in social networks. Even sophisticated verification processes cannot protect public opinion from being influenced by fake accounts. With Jennifer in Paradise (2013), Dullaart recalls the early days of the image editing software Photoshop, which has revolutionised our understanding of the truth of photography.
In her works, Julia Weißenberg (*1982, lives and works in Cologne) focuses on the social impact of the latest digital developments. Secrets are for filthy people (2016) and Live (2018) question the importance of privacy in the digitised world. What effects do images that circulate in mass media have on our perception of ourselves and on our society?
!Mediengruppe Bitnik (Carmen Weisskopf, *1976, and Domagoj Smoljo, *1979, live and work in Zurich and Berlin) deals with the loss of digital control. The series Solve this Captcha (2016) focuses on bots that mimic human behaviour. How can we tell whether a person is actually sitting in front of a computer screen or whether a program is running? And can we humans understand the bots’ communication strategies?
Jonas Lund (*1984, lives and works in Berlin) uses blockchain-based systems to illuminate the economic and social context of the art market. In his latest work, JLT Jonas Lund Token (2018), he creates shares of his artistic practice as a cryptocurrency, allowing shareholders to make strategic decisions about his artistic development.
The works on paper in the series RGB Paintings (2018/19) by Gonzalo Reyes Araos (*1980, lives and works in Berlin) are inspired by screens. The raster images are based on pixels composed of red, green, and blue. Errors in the grid make parallels of information transmission in the physical and the digital world visible.
Tristan Schulze (*1982, lives and works in Leipzig) initiates a dialogue between humans and artificial intelligence in his work Webmaschine (2018). Weaving patterns can be understood as binary character strings, and algorithms can generate new patterns. Schulze has programmed an artificial neural network that creates weaving templates for a hand loom. Each intervention in the weaving process trains the network. The finished fabrics reproduce this interaction between human and machine in a woven, legible form in an entirely analogue and linear manner.
Addie Wagenknecht (*1981, lives and works in Innsbruck) also makes use of algorithms for her art. For her works from the series Beauty and Terror (2018), she modified a robot vacuum so that it paints with cosmetic products such as perfume, vitamins, and make-up on canvas. On the one hand, Wagenknecht deals with the intertwining of the beauty industry with the development of military technology, and on the other hand she poses major questions about beauty and the representation of the female body today.
Guest curator: Anne Schwanz
Openings: Saturday, 9th March 2019, 5:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Exhibition periods: Sunday, 10. März – Sunday, 21. July 2019
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Image caption: Jonathan Monk, Exhibit Model Three, VOX, Courtesy of the artist. © Michel Brunelle.
!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Solve This Captcha Series, exhibition view, EPFL ArtLab, Lausanne, 2017. © Adrien Baraka.
Exhibition – Jonathan Monk – plus guests – Galerie KINDL | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Exhibitions Berlin Galleries | ART at Berlin
