POINTING | ZEIGEN
AN AUDIO TOUR THROUGH BERLIN
Curator: Karin Sander, Berlin/Zurich
Temporäre Kunsthalle | Schlossplatz | Berlin-Mitte
Opening on Friday, December 4, at 9 pm
December 5, 2009 to January 10, 2010
TAGGED. ►Review
Contribution by Dietmar Kirves:
[Code number 249]:
Boris Lurie's message
on Dietmar Kirves' answering machine,
on Aug 25, 2003 [1:09 min]
Boris is the co-founder of the NO!art movement
PLOT: In the extensive exhibition Zeigen. An Audio Tour through Berlin, conceptual artist Karin Sander brings together works by 566 Berlin-based artists at Temporaere Kunsthalle Berlin.
Upon entering it, the Temporaere Kunsthalle appears to be completely empty - nothing seems to refer to a work of art. However, on stepping up close to the walls, one sees a thin strip of lettering running round the hall in a continuous line, naming all the artists involved in alphabetical order. Each name on the wall is assigned a number. By entering this number into an audio guide system the visitor can select and listen to any contribution in individual order.
Evading the usual exhibition format and the expectations associated with it, Karin Sander invited fellow artists to translate their own work into an acoustic piece. All in all, the works evince an immense variety mirroring their creators' different artistic standpoints. Works are sometimes illustrated verbally: what is seen in a picture is related, sung, or otherwise described. Artistic aims are proclaimed in manifestos. Or critics, friends, children are invited to explain works. Sometimes noises occurring while producing works are documented in a kind of workshop report. There are numerous, different pieces, taken together, generate a compelling acoustic panorama. For the audience, this opens up a level of perception which leads from the familiar visual approach to artworks towards an auditory, imaginative experience. It is only as a product of the individual subject's power of imagination that the individual works become "visible": they hang on no wall but materialize instead in visitors' heads.
Karin Sander develops her works in dialog with the social and material background of existing situations, examining the complex relations between artwork, institution, and viewer. With Zeigen. An Audio Tour through Berlin, she has realized an exhibition project that brings together very different artistic positions and practices. Since 2003, Karin Sander has been working on an audio archive entitled ZEIGEN for which she invites artists to transpose their work into acoustic form. At Temporaere Kunsthalle Berlin, she is bringing together such a large number of statements for the first time, offering an unusual insight into the city's current artistic production.
"The title of the exhibition at the Temporaere Kunsthalle is "Zeigen" ("to show"), and yet visitors only hear things. It is not just that this happens to be the title of one of my works, but that the specifically human ability to show is centrally important both to us artists and to curators. For, when one shows someone something, one adopts their point of view and conversely allows them to partake of one's own. In this sense, the ability to show is not only a fundamental condition of communication, but also serves as a definition of artistic work: to open up spaces for the visible. This is the exhibition and the book." Karin Sander
The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther Koenig and a limited edition.
Instruction Audio Guide: On the walls in the exhibition space you will see the artists' names arranged in alphabetical and numerical order. To hear the contribution by a particular artist, enter the corresponding number with the touchscreen on your audio guide and push the green button.
Most of the pieces are roughly two minutes long. You can stop and skip to another at any time by pushing the red button.
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PARTICIPATING ARTISTS: Saâdane Afif, Carla Åhlander / Gernot Wieland, Nader Ahriman, Nevin Aladag, Stefan Alber, Erik Alblas, Sonja Alhäuser, Bettina Allamoda, Heather Allen, Pablo Alonso, D-L Alvarez, Matthew Antezzo, John Armleder, Ole Aselmann, Martin Assig, Marius Babias, Mona Babl, Elvira Bach, Florian Bach, Frank Badur, Fritz Balthaus, Heike Baranowsky, Gabriele Basch / Maurice de Martin, Rui Calçada Bastos, Florian Baudrexel, Michael Bause, T.R. Becker, Tjorg Douglas Beer, Birgit Bellmann, Benjamin Bergmann, Christine Berndt, Anne Berning, Michael Beutler, Nicole Bianchet, Gerry Bibby, Marc Bijl, Norbert Bisky, Caroline Bittermann, Kristleifur Björnsson, John Bock, Katinka Bock, Armin Boehm, Hartmut Böhm, Heike Bollig, Monica Bonvicini, Shannon Bool, Susanne Bosch, Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, Daniela Brahm, Marc Brandenburg, Monika Brandmeier, Barbara Breitenfellner, Mari Brellochs, Micha Brendel, Birgit Brenner, Agnieszka Brzezanska, Nine Budde, Matthew Burbidge, BURGHARD, Katarina Burin, Stefanie Bürkle, Susanne Bürner, André Butzer, Pash Buzari, Janet Cardiff / George Bures Miller, Eva Castringius, Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson, Antonio Catelani, Jessica Centner, Paolo Chiasera / Alex Trebo, Helen Cho, Clegg & Guttmann, Kerstin Cmelka, Daniela Comani, Martin Conrads, Martin Conrath / Marion Kreißler, Natalie Czech, Camilla Dahl, Björn Dahlem, Martin Dammann, Mariechen Danz, Paul Darius, Ronald de Bloeme, Michel de Broin, Christine de la Garenne, Jana Debrodt, Christiane Dellbrügge & Ralf de Moll, Dieter Detzner, Frank Diersch, Peter Dittmer, Ursula Döbereiner, Peter Dobroschke, Jason Dodge, Paula Doepfner, Christina Doll, Tatjana Doll, A K Dolven, Johanna Domke, Antje Dorn / Lukas Lonski, Hannah Dougherty, Margarete Dreher, Ruprecht Dreher, Jürgen Drescher, Arnold Dreyblatt, Sven Drühl, Peter Duka, Jimmy Durham, Mikala Dwyer, Bogomir Ecker, Knut Eckstein, Maria Eichhorn, Frauke Eigen, Dörte Eißfeldt, Paul Ekaitz, Nezaket Ekici, Robert Elfgen, Thomas Eller, Elmgreen & Dragset, Slawomir Elsner, Annika Eriksson, Ayse Erkmen, Esra Ersen, Ueli Etter, EVA & ADELE, Simon Faithfull, Faller / Mieth / Stüssi / Weck, Anna Fasshauer, Valérie Favre, Friederike Feldmann, Peter Fend, Rainer Fetting, Berta Fischer, Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani, Wolfgang Flad, Ulrike Flaig, Christian Flamm, Jean Pascal Flavien, Thomas Florschuetz & Carla Guagliardi, Carsten Fock, Gunda Förster, Olivier Foulon, Heiner Franzen, Hanna Frenzel, Marten Frerichs, Pia Fries / Hans Brändli, Barbara Frieß, Bernard Frize, Tom Früchtl, Simon Fujiwara, Tine Furler, Taro Furukata, Dani Gal, Heike Gallmeier, Bernhard Garbert, Kati Gausmann, Axel Geis, Stella Geppert, Patrycja German, Torben Giehler, Milena Gierke, Andrew Gilbert, Annette Gödde, Claus Goedicke, Thorsten Goldberg, Undine Goldberg, Erik Göngrich, Delia Gonzalez, Douglas Gordon, Kerstin Gottschalk, Sabine Groß, Katharina Grosse / Michael E. Smith, Lilly Grote, Asta Gröting, Eva Grubinger, Beate Gütschow, Terry Haggerty, Mathew Hale, Hlynur Hallsson, Atalayman Haluk, Friederike Hamann, Sebastian Hammwöhner, Jens Hanke, Elín Hansdóttir, Erla S. Haraldsdottir, Joe Hardesty, Ellen Harvey, Bertram Hasenauer, Christian Hasucha, Mona Hatoum, Tobias Hauser / Hermann Bohlen, Elisabeth Hautmann, Eberhard Havekost, Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro, Swetlana Heger / Billy Davis, Isabel Heimerdinger, Valeria Heisenberg, Hans Hemmert, Uwe Henneken, Anton Henning, Knut Henrik Henriksen, Arturo Herrera, Swantje Hielscher, Gregor Hildebrandt, Veronike Hinsberg, Moritz Hirsch, Franz Hoefner & Harry Sachs, Christian Hoischen, Karl Holmqvist, Olaf Holzapfel, Alexandra Hopf, Laura Horelli / Anu Pennanen, Ute Hörner & Mathias Antlfinger, Sabine Hornig, Franka Hörnschemeyer, Satch Hoyt, Felix Stephan Huber, Patrick Huber, Nicolai Huch, Markus Huemer, Elvira Hufschmid, Sofia Hultén, Hideaki Idetski, Leiko Ikemura, John Isaacs, Jeroen Jacobs, Dani Jakob, Christian Jankowski, Monika Jarecka, Mona Jas & Holger Friese, Olaf Christopher Jenssen, Sven-Åke Johansson, Rolf Julius, Stephanie Jünemann, Stephan Jung, Lisa Junghanß, Johannes Kahrs, Ilona Kálnoky, Sejla Kameric, Helmut & Johanna Kandl, Eckhard Karnauke, Katharina Karrenberg, Silke Kästner, Veronika Kellndorfer, Isabel Kerkermeier, Iris Kettner, Waszem Khan, Shila Khatami, Thomas Kiesewetter, Dietmar Kirves, Christiane Klatt, Astrid Klein, Gisela Kleinlein, Heike Klussmann, Paco Knöller, Daniel Knorr, Folke Köbberling & Martin Kaltwasser, Andreas Koch, Peter K. Koch, Takehito Koganezawa, Susanne Kohler, Karsten Konrad, Korpys / Löffler, Katarzyna Kozyra, Pauline Kraneis, Ullrich Kraus, Wolfgang Krause, Clemens Krauss, Susanne Kriemann, Käthe Kruse, Christina Kubisch, Coco Kühn, Raimund Kummer, Michael Kunze, Ulrike Kuschel, Susanne Kutter, Alicja Kwade, Marcellvs L., Nick Laessing, Christin Lahr, David Lamelas, Mark Lammert, Pia Lanzinger, Sami Ben Larbi, Tim Lee, Gerda Leopold, Via Lewandowsky, Alexandra Leykauf, Axel Lieber, Deborah Ligorio, María Linares, Ute Lindner, Nikolaus List, Thomas Locher, Wiebke Loeper, Adrian Lohmüller, Susanne Lorenz, Darri Lorenzen, Antonia Low, Robert Lucander, Dieter Lutsch, Ute Mahling, Inge Mahn / Katrin Albrecht / Valentin Hertweck , Antje Majewski, Katrin von Maltzahn, Simone Mangos, Matthias Mansen, Angelika Margull, Rémy Markowitsch, Bernhard Martin, Yvette Mattern, Hans-Jörg Mayer, Matthias Mayer, Christoph Mayer chm. / Andreas Hagelüken u.a., Josephine Meckseper, Jonathan Meese, Birgit Megerle, Sandra Meisel, Bjørn Melhus, Isa Melsheimer, Florian Merkel / Jasmin Schwarz / BEEP OFF, Arwed Messmer, Yves Mettler, Dörte Meyer, Nanne Meyer, Angelika Middendorf, Ricarda Mieth, Boris Mikhailov, Yana Milev, Gerold Miller, John Miller, Igor Mischiyev, Dane Mitchell, Martin Mlecko, Christiane Möbus, Ulrike Mohr, Martin Mohr, Regina Möller, Jonathan Monk, Stephan Mörsch, Sofie Bird Møller, Jan Muche, Christl Mudrak, Wolfgang Müller, Peter Müller, Michael Müller, Matt Mullican, Anca Munteanu-Rimnic, Piotr Nathan, Hajnal Németh, Ursula Neugebauer, Neulant van Exel, Carsten Nicolai, Karina Nimmerfall, Astrid Nippoldt, Ann Noël, Jens Nordmann, Silke Nowak, Hester Oerlemans, Roman Ondak, Aya Onodera, Michael Otto, Amy Patton, Antonio Gonzales Paucar, Manfred Peckl, João Penalva, Manfred Pernice, Sandra Peters, Kristian Petersen, Mario Pfeifer, Katja Pfeiffer, Pfelder, Daniel Pflumm, Andrea Pichl, Katinka Pilscheur, Hermann Pitz, Nina Pohl, Marco Poloni, David Polzin, Sophia Pompéry, Lynn Pook & Julien Clauss, Bettina Pousttchi, Prinz Gholam, Peter Pumpler, Norbert Radermacher, Fritz Rahmann, Alexandra Ranner, Rebecca Raue, raumtaktik, von Borries / Böttger, Haleh Redjaian, Dodi Reifenberg, Inken Reinert, Berthold Reiß, Andreas Reiter Raabe, Thomas Rentmeister, Cornelia Renz / Laura Bruce, Gunter Reski, Mandla Reuter, Reynold Reynolds, Bernd Ribbeck, Tanja Rochelmeyer, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Kirstine Roepstorff, Ursula Rogg, Stefan Römer, Maya Roos, Peter Rösel, Jenny Rosemeyer, Rosen / Wojnar, Aura Rosenberg, Angela Rosenberg, Fried Rosenstock, Roth Stauffenberg, Miguel Rothschild, Steven Rowell, Annette Ruenzler, Egill Sæbjörnsson, Stefan Saffer, Anri Sala, Dean Sameshima, Maike Sander, Yorgos Sapountzis, Yehudit Sasportas, Matt Saunders, Eran Schaerf, Albrecht Schäfer, Sophia Schama, Gerda Scheepers, Jutta Scheiner, Andreas Schimanski, Hanns Schimansky, Cornelia Schleime, Ariel Schlesinger, Sebastiaan Schlicher, Les Schliesser, Gesine Schmauder, Regina Schmeken, Gunna Schmidt, Tomas Schmit, Ralf Schmitt, Gregor Schneider, Albrecht Schnider, Dennis Scholl, Frances Scholz, Eva Maria Schön, Jo Schöpfer, Henrik Schrat, Michael Schultze, Tilo Schulz, Alexandra Schumacher, Veronika Schumacher, Martina Schumacher, Hanna Schwarz, Daniel Seiple, Andreas Sell, Aurelia Sellin, Marcus Sendlinger, Eva Seufert, Catriona Shaw, Amie Siegel, Judith Siegmund, Wiebke Siem, Katharina Sieverding, Markus Sixay, Jim Skuldt, Andreas Slominski, Florian Slotawa, Raaf van der Sman, Christopher Snee, Juliane Solmsdorf, Astrid Sourkova / Markus Selg, Heidi Specker, Thomas Spielmann, Andrea Splisgar, Rainer Splitt, Martin Städeli, Klaus Staeck, Raimar Stange, Tim Stapel, Simon Starling, Julia Staszak /Olaf Mach, Erik Steinbrecher, Bente Stokke, Fiete Stolte, Roland Stratmann, Josef Strau, Jaro Straub, Marlene Streeruwitz, Katja Strunz, Asli Sungu, Shanghay Surbir, Anita Tarnutzer, Vincent Tavenne, Mathilde ter Heijne, Benedikt Terwiel, Stefan Thiel, Mirjam Thomann, Bernhard Thome, Jan Timme, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Wawrzyniec Tokarski, Christian Tonner, Bernd Trasberger, Petra Trenkel, Luca Trevisani, Mette Tronvoll, Sandra Truté, Nasan Tur, Jochen Twelker, Timm Ulrichs, Malte Urbschat, Ignacio Uriarte, Marcel van Eeden, Maria Vedder, Vlado Velkov, Till Velten, Johannes Vogl, Gabriel Vormstein, Gunnar Voss, Simon Wachsmuth, Alexander Wagner, Rolf Walz, Tian Tian Wang, Fu Wang, Ryszard Wasko, Corinne Wasmuht, Suse Weber, Heike Weber, Ina Weber, Clemens von Wedemeyer, Markus Weggenmann, Susanne Weirich, Albert Weis, Ute Weiss Leder, Peter Welz , Tilmann Wendland, Matthias Wermke / Mischa Leinkauf, Maja Weyermann, Suse Wiegand, Claudia Wieser, Eva-Maria Wilde, Berndt Wilde, Stephen Wilks , Barbara Wille, Klaus Winichner, Markus Wirthmann, Anna Witt, Karsten Wittke, Johannes Wohnseifer, Jens Wolf, Alexander Wolff, Ming Wong, Christine Würmell, Florian Wüst, Paola Yacoup, Ekrem Yalcindag, Haegue Yang, Qin Yufen, Simone Zaugg, Holly Zausner, Francis Zeischegg, Georg Zey, Ralf Ziervogel, David Zink Yi, Annett Zinsmeister, Christina Zück, Christof Zwiener.
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About the curator:
►Karin Sander, geb. in Bensberg/Nordrhein-Westfalen (D), lebt und arbeitet in Berlin (D) und Zürich (CH). Seit 2007 hat sie eine Professur für Architekur und Kunst an der ETH Zürich. | Ausbildung: Studium an der Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart und dem Whitney Program / Studio-Programm, New York. | Ausstellungen (Auswahl): 2010 Contemplating The Void, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; 2009 Sharjah Biennale, UAE; 2008 Scape, Biennale Christchurch, NZ; 2007 Painting, The Museum of Modern Art, New York; 2006 Nichts, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; 2004 Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; 2002 Karin Sander, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, (E); 2002 wordsearch, moment, New York; 2001 0101 Art in technological Times, The Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; 1997 Skulptur. Projekte in Münster; 1995 Orientation, Biennale Istanbul; 1991 Out of sight, PS 1 Museum, New York. | Sammlungen (Auswahl): The Museum of Modern Art, New York (USA), The Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (USA); The Metropolitan Museum, New York (USA); Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (D); Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago di Compostela (E); SAFN Reykjavik (IS); Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart (D); Stiftung für Konkrete Kunst, Reutlingen (D); Nationalmuseum Osaka (Japan); Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (CH); Sammlung Deutsche Bank (D), Hirschhorn Museum, Washington DC (USA).
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Review by INGEBORG RUTHE:
Hearing what cannot be seen — headphones instead of pictures
The Kunsthalle am Schlossplatz
offers an acoustic overview of Berlin's artistic scene
in: Berliner Zeitung, Dec 05, 2009
BERLIN - It's pounding. To each blow on a nail in an invisible board, a man's voice shouts, "The Temporäre Kunsthalle should be the showcase of Berlin's art scene!" Then the hammering continues, loud and brazen. The voice and the blows suggest, of course, that someone is nailing up a shop window instead of admiring the displays. The person nailing and shouting must have an ironic nature - a kind of Dadaist. And the operators of the private Kunsthalle, which is to serve as an art-promoting interim until the castle is rebuilt, must be having fun.
Noise and voice can only be turned off by pressing a button. Silence. That was seat No. 257 of an audio tour, which tells about the local artist scene as a highly unusual action in the Temporary Art Gallery at Schlossplatz. The user of such a device, familiar from any major museum, has a choice of 599 numbers. If he presses number three, he may listen to the sustained voice of a painter who describes in detail and rich in stories a painting entitled "The Shepherd." It is, he says, three by five meters in size and it shows a double head, also called Janus head, and this bears the faces of Plato and Hegel. In the description of the picture, Nietzsche and the Holy Spirit also appear later, and Hegel then also appears again as the world spirit on horseback. Finally, the whole thing ends in a crucifixion scene. The description is highly amusing.
If one presses the number 455, the ear clearly hears the intense dialogue of a stone sculptor with a sculpture in the making: the chisel penetrates a block of marble, the sculptor makes decisive strokes; he works his way from the outside in and into the stone, just as Michelangelo did.
Fine art, as the name already says, lives from the pictorial. At least one would think so. And it usually lives from being exhibited. By showing on walls, in showcases, on pedestals or video screens. But what happens when showing is done by listening, when there is nothing to see, but one is stimulated, led, even seduced, by voices, sounds and noises into a pictorial imagination? Then it is probably conceptual art. It has the reputation of being exhausting, dry, nonsensical.
Karin Sander, an artist in Berlin, proves the opposite: her action "Show" has been filling the empty white Kunsthalle on Schlossplatz since today. It is an art program that, at the push of a button, is able to trigger a kaleidoscope of images, thoughts and emotions. Anyone who wants to can do so for many hours. The audio tour through Berlin's art landscape, through studios and various exhibitions is enough for 18 hours; art masochists are likely to find fulfillment, dosed less, the tour is an original experience.
A few years ago, Sander, a native of North Rhine-Westphalia who teaches at the Weißensee Art Academy and was born in 1957, showed a portrait tableau of women-all namesakes, the same age, younger, older, dark-haired, red-haired, gray-haired, and blond, like herself. Now Sander's idea goes completely away from her own person, to many famous and less famous colleagues in the city. There is not a single work of art to be seen. At eye level, there are only names of the participating Berlin artists written on the wall and numbers from 1 to 599. At the counter, visitors are given headphones and a simple-to-use audio device - the Kunsthalle has borrowed 80 of them from an electronics provider. You simply dial the number - and the voice or tool of the respective artist introduces you to his or her work. This can be a factual or poetic description, sounds from the studio or from the construction of an installation, or pieces of music - or a little of each.
It is said that there are now at least 15,000 visual artists from all over the world in Berlin, but no one knows exactly. In the past, the operators of the Kunsthalle have been accused of failing to reflect this exuberant amount of art in the city. Karin Sander dares the mammoth act, but tries to master the sheer mass with the strict means of minimalism. She now knows at least 599 artists from here. And she was indeed able to win them all for this project, which changes our level of perception and challenges our imagination.
Absorbed in thought, the visitors now walk through the empty hall with their headphones. The sight in itself is a total work of art. And then only the imagination set in motion!
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