October 22, 2022–January 15, 2023
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KW Institute for Contemporary Art is pleased to present its fall 2022 program, which investigates the mechanisms of visual and popular culture through notions of reproduction, ownership and authenticity as exemplified within the work of Michel Majerus, Christopher Kulendran Thomas and Atiéna R. Kilfa.
Michel Majerus: Early Works
October 22, 2022–January 15, 2023
The exhibition Michel Majerus: Early Works at KW seeks to uncover the earliest layers of Michel Majerus’ (1967–2002, LUX) artistic practice by showing works he produced between 1990 and 1996. Many of these pieces are on public view for the first time.
The exhibition is dedicated to the beginnings of Majerus’ nationally and internationally celebrated work. Majerus’ artistic approach is already apparent in the early works created during his studies. These explore visual culture, time, speed and seriality as well as virtual and physical space. The artist’s continuous observations of surface and space as well as his inquiries into materials and techniques were essential to his methodological way of illuminating how images are produced. This investigation formed the foundations of his reflections on the meaning and power of visual culture.
Besides the exhibition at KW, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k), Kunstverein in Hamburg, Michel Majerus Estate, and the gallery neugerriemschneider, Berlin, will further explore Michel Majerus’ oeuvre in all its complexity, in order to honor it on an unprecedented scale. Opening twenty years after the death of Michel Majerus, the exhibition series Michel Majerus 2022 is dedicated to various phases and aspects of the artist’s extraordinary oeuvre. In parallel, thirteen museums throughout Germany will show works by Michel Majerus from their collections.
More information here.
Christopher Kulendran Thomas: Another World
October 22, 2022–January 15, 2023
The exhibition Christopher Kulendran Thomas: Another World at KW explores an alternative approach to technology through the prism of the defeated revolutionary struggle for an independent Tamil homeland.
Developed together with longtime collaborator Annika Kuhlmann, the exhibition features a major new commission, The Finesse (2022), that examines some of the lost legacies of this liberation movement in Kulendran Thomas’ family homeland. The immersive film installation melts pop culture into political science and combines archive footage with AI-generated avatars. Bisecting the second-floor gallery is a new variation of Kulendran Thomas’ 2019 video work Being Human which takes the viewer on an elliptical journey around Sri Lanka, from the fallout of the civil war there to the biennial of contemporary art founded in its aftermath.
Christopher Kulendran Thomas: Another World is produced in partnership with the Institute of Contemporary Art, London, Kunsthalle Zürich and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin.
More information here.
Atiéna R. Kilfa: The Unhomely
October 22, 2022–January 15, 2023
The exhibition The Unhomely at KW marks the first institutional solo presentation by Atiéna R. Kilfa (b. 1990, France). Kilfa uses photography, sculpture, video, and installations to explore how personal and cultural memories tend to conflict and overlap. Her most recent work draws on her interest in the composition of models, dioramas, still lives, and tableaux vivants, which she sees as sites loaded with inherited narratives and social codes, opening them up for collective review. The Unhomely stages a new video work alongside architectural fragments, transactional sound, and miniature sculpture, probing the memory of “home” as an impossible “virtual” architecture.
The exhibition The Unhomely by Atiéna R. Kilfa is co-produced in partnership with Camden Art Centre in London, where an iteration of the exhibition will be staged from January to March 2023.
More information here.
Press contact
Marie Kube, press@kw-berlin.de
Press Preview: October 21, 2022, 11am
The exhibitions and projects in the fall program 2022 take place in collaboration with and/or are supported by:
