Bettina Pousttchi : Panorama / Natalie Czech / Friederike Feldmann / Bjørn Melhus: Free Update

Bettina Pousttchi: Panorama
Kesselhaus

Bettina Pousttchi (*1971, lives in Berlin) will realise her largest interior photographic installation to date in the Kesselhaus at the KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art. With a height of 20 meters, the cube-shaped Kesselhaus is a unique exhibition venue in Berlin. Following Roman Signer, David Claerbout, Haegue Yang, and Thomas Scheibitz, Bettina Pousttchi will now continue the series of artists who have developed a site-specific work for this spectacular space.

In Berlin, Bettina Pousttchi attracted attention in particular with her acclaimed photo installation Echo (2009–10), for which she covered the entire Temporäre Kunsthalle with an image of the recently demolished Palast der Republik. For the site-specific photographic installation Panorama at the KINDL, Bettina Pousttchi will once again work with photography at an architectural scale. Panorama consists of eight floor-to-ceiling photographs distributed across three walls of the Kesselhaus. At a scale of 1:1, these enormous textile photographic prints in different variations show a view through the windowed facade of the Kesselhaus to the exterior. Reality and photography are simultaneously shifted and integrated: Where are the windows that offer a view of the real environment? Where is the actual wall? What view do the photographed windows show?

With friendly support of Stiftung Kunstfonds.

From September 12, 2019 to April 6, 2020, the Berlinische Galerie – Berlin’s Museum of Modern Art, Photography and Architecture will present the exhibition Bettina Pousttchi: In Recent Years.

Natalie Czech / Friederike Feldmann
Maschinenhaus M2

The double exhibition Natalie Czech / Friederike Feldmann in the Maschinenhaus M2 at the KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art brings the works of these two artists into a dialogue and also presents completely new works, some of which were conceived for the exhibition. In their works, Natalie Czech and Friederike Feldmann deal with the pictorial nature of text and writing and question at what point meanings are created.

In her series of photographs, Natalie Czech (*1976 , lives in Berlin) develops new meanings in the aesthetic interweaving of different levels of text and image. The starting point for her conceptual photographs is selected text materials that she combines with a visual counterpart. The artist develops new meanings in the aesthetic interweaving of textual and pictorial levels. In addition to works from series such as Negative Calligrammes (2018) and Poet’s Questions (2018–19), Czech will present the series Cigarette ends (2019) for the first time at the KINDL, realized as a double projection, in which she arranges the brand names of smoked, variously arranged cigarette butts into minimal poems.

Friederike Feldmann’s (*1962, lives in Berlin) paintings, which look like manuscripts, cannot be read, even though it initially seems that individual letters can be deciphered: on closer examination, the powerful lines and sweeping arcs, which are based on the Latin script, turn out to be abstract strings of symbols without a standardized system of reference. Works from the series oneliner (2014–19) and lyrics (2012), among others, will be shown in the Maschinenhaus M2. Feldmann creates a distinctive accent with her site-specific ceiling painting, which she uses to integrate the surfaces of the shed roof.

Bjørn Melhus: Free Update
Maschinenhaus M1

In his solo exhibition Free Update in the Maschinenhaus M1 at the KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, the Norwegian artist Bjørn Melhus (*1966, lives in Berlin) will present works from recent years, including a new work that will be shown for the first time at the KINDL.

Melhus deals with phenomena of the reality created by the media in his films and video installations. In often exaggerated, sometimes absurd and comical short films, he questions the motives and general strategies of the mass media and reflects on their influence on our society today. His work is based on audio fragments from various channels in predominantly Western pop culture and cinema, such as American films, television shows, and YouTube videos. Based on these sound sequences, the artist develops multi-layered narratives in which he places stereotypical characters in strange contexts. Melhus always embodies the varied and often extremely bizarre actors in his films himself. In addition to works such as The Theory of Freedom (2015) and Can You See My Art? (2018), the exhibition features Bjørn Melhus’s latest film Sugar (2019), in which an emotional robot with a soul fights against the narcissism of socially deadened humans.

With friendly support of the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Berlin and the Hypo-Kulturstiftung.

The exhibition takes place as part of Berlin Art Week (September 11–15, 2019).

Until October 20, 2019, the Stiftung Brandenburger Tor, the cultural foundation of the Berliner Sparkasse, shows the exhibition im Atelier Liebermann: Bjørn Melhus: HOT SET.

Curator of all three exhibitions
Andreas Fiedler

Press contact
Denhart v. Harling, dh@segeband.de