Exhibition Program 2013
GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst
Teerhof 21, 28199 Bremen, Germany
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 11–6pm;
Thursday 11–9pm
T +49 421 500 897
F +49 421 593 337
presse [at] gak-bremen.de
The Geometry of Things
Markus Amm, Sara Barker, Charlotte Moth and Robin Watkins
March 2–May 5
FREI.ZEIT
Reinecke&Wimmer
May 11–12
Sanya Kantarovsky
May 26–August 25
FREI.ZEIT
Class of Professor Paco Knöller
September 7–15
Girls Can Tell
Shannon Bool, Kajsa Dahlberg, Nina Hoffmann, Jeremy Shaw et al.
September 28, 2013–mid-January 2014
The GAK’s exhibition program for this year kicks off with The Geometry of Things. This presentation combines recent and new works by Markus Amm (Germany), Sara Barker (UK), Charlotte Moth (UK) and Robin Watkins (Sweden), and is not intended as a classical group exhibition. Rather, its title serves as a common thread that underlies the artists’ diverse positions within a spatial situation, yet without constraining their individual perspectives. It is a platform which allows for the works to spread out in their diversity. The Geometry of Things can be found in all four artistic approaches—ranging from the apparent to the more subtle. All four artists seek out the specifics of geometry, the kind of geometry that reveals itself in common forms or in historical artistic traditions, in everyday life and in scientific experimentation.
Sanya Kantarovsky was born in Moscow in 1982, studied in Los Angeles and recently moved to New York. The artist will present his first institutional exhibition in Europe at the GAK. Characteristic for his work is the juxtaposition of abstract and concrete elements and their vivid interaction within his paintings. A canvas that seems to combine purely abstract forms upon first sight, for example, can turn out to depict a drawn curtain, rendered visible by the addition of a single, inconspicuous painted hand. Kantarovsky’s representational items are reminiscent of disparate sources: items painted in the tradition of the famous illustrations of The New Yorker magazine stand alongside others recalling political illustrations from the 1930s Soviet era or illustrations from children’s books. His paintings are multilayered organisms that eliminate the difference between the concrete and abstract, high and low, the decorative and the politically engaged.
The group exhibition Girls Can Tell brings together works by artists born after the 1970s which exemplify diverse artistic approaches to feminist issues in contemporary art. The show’s underlying assumption is that feminist standpoints form a natural element within the approaches and artistic output of this generation, which in turn impacts on their articulation of these issues—moving from an imperative position towards a positive consciousness that has changed the tone of the discussion. The softer yet still precise tone resulting from this allows for the interrogation of feminist theory without betraying the cause as a whole. Girls Can Tell is the third part of a trilogy of exhibitions exploring different feminist issues in contemporary art that is staged in cooperation with Kunstverein Bonn and Kunstverein Munich. It is accompanied by a three-part conference developed by art historian Kerstin Stakemeier to be held in Bonn, Munich and Bremen.
Between the main exhibitions, the GAK space is made available to the local art scene for the realization of temporary projects in a program headlined FREI.ZEIT. This year’s participants are the artistic duo Reinecke&Wimmer from Bremen/Hamburg and students of the class of Professor Paco Knöller at the University of the Arts Bremen.
*Image above: Nina Hoffmann, Alle Lust Will Ewigkeit (detail), 2013. Two-channel slide projection in daylight, 160 color slides; dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist.
