Aernout Mik: Double Bind / Threshold Barriers

The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting a solo exhibition with two video installations by Aernout Mik. With his choreographed video works, the Dutch artist creates intense situations and traces the behavior and interaction of groups in unstable social contexts. Beside Double Bind (2018) his work Threshold Barriers (2022) is on display, which was conceived specially for the exhibition. Both videos pursue the notions and dynamics of security and threat, power and powerlessness in public space and enter into dialogue with each other at the Schirn.

Dr. Sebastian Baden, director of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, notes: “In a haunting presentation at the Schirn, Aernout Mik probes the often conflictual encounter between society and state power, citizens and police. Institutionalized structures of authority and security, their failure or validity, are repeatedly up for debate against the backdrop of recent events. Mik is presenting his new video work Threshold Barriers for the first time and thus enables Schirn visitors to gain an illuminating perspective on social and democratic power structures and processes by means of art.”

Mik’s fictitious scenarios move between documentation and performance, seeming familiar and disconcerting at the same time. The multichannel installations do not follow any stringent narrative strand; individual fragments are instead interleaved to create an atmospheric staging. The videos reference pictures and reports of current events such as anti-terror measures in large European cities, as well as international protests or police violence against demonstrators, which have become a part of the collective consciousness as a result of their dissemination in the media.

“Aernout Mik’s videos are highly revealing. With scenarios that can at first be classified quickly, in which confusing events take place, he disrupts habits of seeing and experiential values in a subtle way. His works interrogate social systems and their power structures and imagine new possibilities of classification. The two large-format video installations that are juxtaposed with one another in the Schirn immerse viewers in Mik’s fictions and also confront them with their own positions. We are thus immediately prompted to think critically about social and societal paradigms,” emphasizes Katharina Dohm, curator of the exhibition. 

The exhibition Aernout Mik: Double Bind / Threshold Barriers is supported by the City of Frankfurt am Main and the SCHIRN ZEITGENOSSEN, with additional support from the Mondriaan Fund.

A catalog edited by Katharina Dohm has been published in a bilingual edition with a preface by the new director of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt Dr. Sebastian Baden and contributions by Katharina Dohm and Daniel Loick.

Director: Dr. Sebastian Baden
Curator: Katharina Dohm, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
Press contact: Johanna Pulz (Head of Press/Public Relations): presse@schirn.de / T +49 (0) 69 29 98 82 148
Press material: schirn.de/newsroom