PRESS RELEASE

BIELEFELDER KUNSTVEREIN - EXHIBITIONS 2018

MOYRA DAVEY FEBRUARY 17 - APRIL 08, 2018

FLORENCE JUNG

FEBRUARY 17 - APRIL 08, 2018

ARNE SCHMITT

APRIL 21 - JULY 08, 2018

REINHART KOSELLECK’S IMAGES OF TIME

APRIL 21 - JULY 08, 2018

SCRIPTS

SEPTEMBER 01 - NOVEMBER 04, 2018

PAKUI HARDWARE

NOVEMBER 17, 2018 - JANUARY 20, 2019

[ˈhjuːmən] NOVEMBER 17, 2018 - JANUARY 20, 2019

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MOYRA DAVEY HELL NOTES FEBRUARY 17 - APRIL 08, 2018 FLORENCE JUNG FEBRUARY 17 - APRIL 08, 2018 OPENING: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 7 PM

Moyra Davey

Hell Notes (Still), 1990/2017

Super-8 film with sound (transferred to HD video) 26:16 min.

Courtesy the artist

MOYRA DAVEY The artistic work of photographer, filmmaker and author Moyra Davey (*1958 in Toronto, lives in New York)

combines images and language, photography and writing, seeing and reading. Across these fields, Davey engages

equally with the work of other cultural figures and intellectuals as she does with her personal surroundings. This

particular union of art and life appears specifically in her dealings within the medium of photography. Since the late

1980’s, she has produced photographic series which centre around everyday motifs such as newspaper kiosks, people

on the Underground or shots taken from her own apartment. Separately, Davey has also maintained a treatment of

work in which her photographs are folded to letter size and sent individually by post to family members, friends, or

exhibition staff. These prints are then arranged on walls, complete with the traces of tape, labels and stamps on them,

and acquire the semblance of a photo-tableau. At the centre of her exhibition at the Bielefelder Kunstverein there will

feature a film and photographs, both of which date back to the 1990s and deal with the materiality and function of

money. The exhibition is augmented by a more recent trilogy of films (2011-2017) as well as a corresponding small-

format photo series, allowing for a more comprehensive insight into Moyra Davey’s interdisciplinary practice.

The exhibition is Moyra Davey’s first in a German institution and takes place in cooperation with the Portikus

Frankfurt, where her work may be viewed until the end of January 2018.

Moyra Davey, born 1958 in Toronto (CAN), lives in New York (USA). Numerous solo exhibitions have been

dedicated to the artist, among others at the Portikus in Frankfurt (2017), the Bergen Kunsthall (NR, 2016) and the

Camden Arts Centre in London (GB, 2014). Only recently, her works were shown at the documenta 14 in Kassel

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(2017), the Biennale de Montréal (CAN, 2016), the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid (ES,

2017), and the New Yorker Metropolitan Museum of Art (USA, 2016).

Moyra Davey’s Exhibition is supported by:

FLORENCE JUNG In her works, Florence Jung often creates situations, which subvert reality as we experience it and the structures of

the art world. You can compare her approach to »reprogramming an existing system«, as she once put it herself. Her

performances and interventions take place in public spaces as well as in those of various institutions and are always a

concrete reaction to a given environment and try to draw her audience in directly. The boundary between fact and

fiction then becomes mostly a blur for viewers. The artist is consistent in not publishing any photos of her actions

and in this places particular stress on not being herself present as an artist with a portrait in public view. Hence, it is

only short descriptions of projects, stories and discussions of her work that allow any insight into her activity. With

that, Jung makes the reception of her work, the specific conditions of its development, the exhibition venue and the

relation to viewers into the actual object of the work. In the context of this, her first solo presentation in a German

institution, Florence Jung will be devising a new project for the Bielefelder Kunstverein.

Florence Jung, born 1986 in Sarreguemines, Lorraine (F), lives in Biel / Bienne (CH) and Amsterdam (NL). In the

past year there were solo shows e.g. at Frac Franche-Comté inBesançon (F), at Edmond Felson in Berlin and at the

Galerie Martine Aboucaya (F, all 2017). Furthermore the artist was part of numerous group shows, amongst others

at Bienal de Curitiba (BRA), Museum Tinguely in Basel (CH), Kunsthaus Zürich (CH) and at Chateau de Servières

in Marseille (F, all 2017). In 2017 Florence Jung was awarded the Swiss Art Award and the Preis der Dr. Georg

und Josi Guggenheim Stiftung.

Florence Jung’s Exhibition is supported by:

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ARNE SCHMITT

APRIL 21 - JULY 08, 2018

REINHART KOSELLECK’S IMAGES OF TIME

APRIL 21 - JULY 08, 2018

OPENING: FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 7 PM

Arne Schmitt Reinhart Koselleck

O.T., from the series Basalt. Ursprung, Gebrauch, Inscription on a building – Via del Progresso, June 23, 1977 Überhöhung, 2018 © Bildarchiv Foto Marburg / Photographer: Reinhart Koselleck

Courtesy the artist and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018

ARNE SCHMITT Arne Schmitt’s art and photography expresses his interest in public spaces, and particularly in architectural entities

and urban construction. He uses pictorial means to investigate the ideology contained in the reconstruction of the

post-war years in Germany, the structural organisation of new urban living spaces, as well as the current situation

and materiality of West German architecture. Currently, Schmitt is also interested in the socio-economic influence

large companies, like Gerling or BASF, have exerted on their urban surroundings. Alongside his own photographs,

specially written texts and reproductions of specific historical publications, contrasted in a complex process of

montage and selection, form a crucial component in his extensive series. For Schmitt’s first solo exhibition in a

German institution, the focus will lie, among other things on a group of works dealing with the mining of basalt, the

trading in it and its cultural significance.

Arne Schmitt, born 1984 in Mayen, lives and works in Cologne. Solo exhibitions have been dedicated to the artist,

lately e.g. at Galerie Jacky Strenz in Frankfurt (2017), Galerie K in Bremen (2016) and at the Sprengel Museum

Hannover (2012). Schmitt took part in numerous group exhibitions, amongst others at the Biennale für aktuelle

Fotografie in Mannheim (2017), at the Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach (2016) and at the Förderpreis der

Wüstenrot Stiftung in Essen (2015).

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REINHART KOSELLECK’S IMAGES OF TIME Reinhart Koselleck (1923-2006) counts as one of the most important German historians of the 20

th century. He

taught at Bielefeld University from 1973 until 1988. This professor of history became known, above all, for his

history of concepts and his contributions to a theory of historical time. By contrast, scarcely anyone knows about the

importance of images and figurativeness for his thinking about history. This interaction with imagery has brought

Bielefeld University, the ZiF - Center for Interdisciplinary Research and the Bielefelder Kunstverein to devote to it a

joint exhibition in three locations. It is presenting Koselleck’s own photographs, caricatures and drawings as well as

a large variety of sculptural genres, which are closely related to Koselleck’s historical research. Also, material such

as manuscripts and books are on view. Thus, the exhibition lets us experience visually what occupied Reinhart

Koselleck over many decades: the pictorial dimension of history and of research into it.

An exhibition by Bielefeld University, in collaboration with the ZiF - Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) and

the Bielefelder Kunstverein

SCRIPTS

SEPTEMBER 01 - NOVEMBER 04, 2018 OPENING: FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 7 PM In recent years, numerous artists have published fragmentary novellas, film scripts, plays for theatre and radio and

conceptual texts. Writing and working with texts are understood as an independent process, as a specific form of

artistic activity and as a possibility of expressing public thought. Influenced by contemporary theory, historical

scripts or socio-political changes the artistic texts become source-codes for various forms of presentation. Against

this background, the exhibition, »Scripts«, focuses on writing as a model, the translation and appropriation of already

existing texts, as well as their transformation in various media or visual forms. The international group exhibition

collects together a wide variety of text-forms as well as artists’ publications, live productions, films, photographs,

prints, sculptures and installations.

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PAKUI HARDWARE NOVEMBER 17, 2018 - JANUARY 20, 2019

[ˈhjuːmən] NOVEMBER 17, 2018 - JANUARY 20, 2019

OPENING: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 7 PM

Pakui Hardware, Sascha Pohflepp On Demand (Detail), 2017 Recursion (still), 2016

UV print on heat-treated PVC film HD video

Silicone, chia seeds, tripod, spring clamps, ceramics 2:00 min. Exhibition view at Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2017 Performed by Erika Ostrander

Courtesy the artists Courtesy the artist

PAKUI HARDWARE Pakui Hardware was founded by Neringa Černiauskaitė and Ugnius Gelguda in 2014. They are interested in the

close relationship between materiality, technology and economies. Central to their work is the question as to how far

technology actually does alter economics and our physical/bodily perception of reality. Pakui Hardware investigate

questions of automation, robotics, synthetic biology and the significance of new materials. The artist duo produces

sculptures and installations suffused with various materials, images, and shapes, which are often reminiscent of

futuristic settings. Here, fabric and material produced by technology encounter transparent, ephemeral materials;

they determine the equally organic and synthetic appearance of their objects and spatial installations. Pakui

Hardware will be developing a new project for their solo exhibition at Bielefelder Kunstverein.

Pakui Hardware, funded 2014 by Neringa Černiauskaitė, born 1984 in Klaipeda, Lithuania, and Ugnius Gelguda,

born 1977 in Vilnius, Lithuania, had numerous solo shows since 2014, amongst others at SIC Room at Kiasma in

Helsinki (FIN, 2017), MUMOK in Vienna (AUT, 2016) and at kim? Contemporary Art Center in Riga (LVA, 2015).

Lately they took part in group exhibitions, e.g. at Kunstverein Braunschweig and Kunstverein Freiburg, at the

Kunsthalle Basel (SUI) and at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (AUS, all 2017).

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[ˈhjuːmən]

Up to now, humans consider themselves the only living creatures capable of reflecting on themselves and their

environment: they, therefore, possess consciousness. However, current studies are indicating that artificial

intelligence could already be enabled to evolve an equally autonomous consciousness capable of learning within the

next 50 years. What was developed as a mechanical aid to overcoming human weaknesses, could, then, very soon

represent yet further developed, optimised human beings and throw these latter back upon the other side of their

humanity: their capacity for suffering through physical deterioration and their capacity of moral judgements. The

international group exhibition, [ˈhjuːmən], is, therefore, risking a speculative look at the human species, where

qualities such as vulnerability, imperfection or emotionality suddenly become its most important distinguishing

features. It presents an accessible environment of video works, interventions in the exhibition space and

performances to question and reflect our self-image as humans. It challenges us to take on the viewpoint of artificial

counterparts and, in that way, to sound out our own moral, demarcatory or aesthetic boundaries.

You will find further information related to the exhibition in the press section of our website:

www.bielefelder-kunstverein.de.

KONTAKT Bielefelder Kunstverein

im Waldhof

Welle 61

D-33602 Bielefeld

T +49 (0) 521. 17 88 06

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www.bielefelder-kunstverein.de

kontakt@bielefelder-kunstverein.de

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