Filip Markiewicz: Ultrasocial Pop

The exhibition Ultrasocial Pop by Filip Markiewicz at Haus am Lützowplatz (HaL) is part of a larger, widely ramified project of the same name that is taking place in different places and at different times. The poetological center of the project is the album Ultrasocial Pop by Raftside, Filip Markiewicz’s musical identity, which was released in September 2021 by the Berlin label Grzegorzki Records. 

Filip Markiewicz lived in Berlin from 2009 to 2012. The project at Haus am Lützopwlatz (HaL) is the artist's first institutional solo exhibition in Berlin and is the result of a cooperation with MUDAM in Luxembourg. Some of the works now shown in Berlin were produced and presented there in connection with the group exhibition Freigeister (November 11, 2021–February 27, 2022). In addition to several newly produced wall works and animated films, the Berlin exhibition is supplemented by a series of drawings that take up the motifs of Modest Mussorgsky's piece of music “Pictures at an Exhibition” (1874). These sheets refer to the performance of the composition by the Berlin Philharmonic on April 24, 2022, for which Filip Markiewicz designed the scenery. In addition, the film Euro Hamlet, which was shot in 2021 as part of the play Euro Hamlet, which Filip Markiewicz directed and for which he designed the stage set, will be shown in Germany for the first time. The film is an experimental version of theatrical performance.

And finally, the exhibition is in direct dialogue with the solo exhibition of the artist Instant Comedy, which opened at the end of February 2022 in the Konschthal Esch as part of the celebrations of Esch-sur-Alzett as the European Capital of Culture. “Instant Comedy“ is the title of a track on the album Ultrasocial Pop. As a combination of the Berlin exhibition and the exhibition in the Konschthal Esch, the project will be continued in November 2022 under the title Ultrasocial Pop in the Galerie Meno Parkas in Kaunas (Lithuania). Like Esch-sur-Alzett, Kaunas is European Capital of Culture in 2022. 

Born in Luxembourg in 1980, Filip Markiewicz is a multidisciplinary artist who studied art in Strasbourg until 2006, while also making a name for himself as a musician. Markiewicz has already produced eight albums under the band name Raftside and has performed at various music festivals independently of his art projects. Markiewicz sees the aesthetic fusion of high and pop culture as well as various art genres as a coherent answer to the complexity and contradictions of the contemporary world. The aim is always to engage with and convey political, social and economic discourses, not least also to reflect on the exhibition medium in an institutional framework. 

Filip Markiewicz represented the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) with the exhibition Paradiso Lussemburgo, in which he staged a “total theater“ of our contemporary disparate society, combining dance, performance, music, architecture, literature and DJ culture combined. This was also followed by his exhibition series “CELEBRATION FACTORY,” which began at NN Contemporary Art in Northampton (2017), continued at Casino-Luxemburg (2018) and the Center for Contemporary Art in Londonderry (2019), Northern Ireland and continued from November 2019 to February 2020 in the Kunsthalle Osnabrück came to a preliminary conclusion.