una feria temática en la que se exponen, venden e intercambian instrumentos musicales electrónicos... se ofertan CD´s y vinilos, a la vez que conciertos y sesiones de dj. Todo ello dentro de un mercado tradicional madrileño: el Mercado de la Cebada, en La Latina.
Music & Dealers se monta en la fiesta de San Isidro (la principal de Madrid) con este evento mutante, esparcido en las dos plantas del abovedado mercado aledaño a La Plaza de la Cebada.
Entendiéndo el giro de los eventos temáticos en la cultura del espectáculo, la combinación de feria, disco, deguste gastronómico al paso de tapeo y pinchos mezclado con la generación de un punto de encuentro inusual y único, marcan una forma de entender la hibridación y generación de espacios públicos temporales con la utilización de entornos construidos, en los que se "amplia" el concepto inicial... en este caso del mercado.
Tomás Saraceno's installations shatter traditional concepts relating to place, time, gravity and traditional ideas as to what constitutes architecture. His works are utopian and invite the viewer to play a part in their impact on a particular space, as they reach up to the sky and down to the ground. The artist creates gardens that hang in the air and allow visitors to float in space, fulfilling a dream shared by all humankind. Saraceno draws inspiration from soap bubbles and the incredible strength and flexibility of spider webs.
The interests of the artist (born in 1973, in Tucuman/Argentina) are broad and he moves with confidence from place to place throughout the world. With his studio in Frankfurt, it is unsurprising that the city's international airport plays an important role in his work. Everything he does appears to develop from a certain degree of boundlessness, motivated by an interest in the changes taking place in the world in which we live. Each of his objects invites the viewer to consider alternative forms of knowledge, feelings and our interaction with others.
The exhibition in the Hamburger Bahnhof will for the first time see approx. 20 of his balloon models go on show at one time. The exhibition will give visitors the chance to see for themselves how the hanging settlements interact with each other and the space, not merely by observing them from afar, but by actually entering them.
The exhibition, presented by the National Museums in Berlin, has been made possible by the Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie and sponsored by Dornbracht Installation Projects, 2011 (www.dornbracht.com). With thanks to the Outset Contemporary Art Fund, London, for their generous donation of the work 'Observatory' to the Nationalgalerie's collection.
Curated by Britta Schmitz, curatorial assistance Katharina Schlüter
Cyprien Gaillard The Recovery of Discovery March 27 – May 22, 2011 Opening: Saturday, March 26, 5 pm – 2 am
“Now to the main point! How do we get everything to Berlin?” Carl Humann, September 1878
Preserving a monument goes hand in hand with destroying it. In order to preserve architecture, cultural monuments and relics, they are often re-located, thus abolishing the original context. The dislocation of a monument does not only alter the history of its original location, but also leads to a radical re-interpretation of the monument itself. So, the history of the Pergamon Altar’s reception in Germany ranges from monarchistic to monarchic-colonialist, fascist, communist and even into nationalist movements. The spectrum of appropriations reflects the respective attitudes towards archaeology and the notion of discovery typical for different historical contexts and political systems. A discovery always goes along with its patronization; something, which the discovered never seems to be able to recover itself from again. Architectural elements of cultural monuments are often removed and dispersed separately all over the world. Hence, we currently find the ruins of the temples of Ephesus in the British Museum in London, in the Art Historical Museum in Vienna and in the Archaeological Museums of Selçuk, Izmir and Istanbul, as well as in Efes (Latin: Ephesus) itself.
In his work, Cyprien Gaillard repeatedly explores the absurd aspects of dystopic architectures and their remaining ruins through such strategies as dilapidation, destruction, demolition, preservation, conservation and reconstruction of architecture. In doing so he always departs from the process itself. For his exhibition at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin Cyprien Gaillard has created a new, large-scale piece, which – whilst departing from a prototype of the monument – completes itself in the process. Similarly to the relocation of the Pergamon Altar, 72,000 bottles of beer of the brand “Efes” have been transported from Turkey to Germany. The cardboard boxes filled with bottles form the even steps of the pyramid. By using the monument – by climbing the sculpture and drinking the beer – its destruction is already initiated. The barbaric removal of single architectural elements that have been transported from their original location to Berlin, embodies both the concept of displacement and a tourist colonialism. Despite the geographic origin of alcohol often being of great importance to the consumer, the provenience seems to become more and more unimportant, as its consumption increases. Along the lines of the gradual destruction of the sculpture the alcohol gradually dispels and destroys both body and mind. The physical hangover is also an architectural one, from which one has to recover.
Equal to a collective amnesia in an active neglect of the sculptural form – lost in the hopeless interaction with the monument – the successive destruction becomes an aesthetic of resistance.
(Text on the KW website about the exhibition)
KW Institute for Contemporary Art Auguststraße 69 D-10117 Berlin info@kw-berlin.de
(Photo: KW)
(Photo: Carlos León-Xjiménez)
(Photo: Carlos León-Xjiménez)
(Photo: Carlos León-Xjiménez)
(Photo: Carlos León-Xjiménez)
(Photo: KW)
Last exhibition day: May 22, 2011 (Photo: Carlos León-Xjiménez)
Last exhibition day: May 22, 2011 (Photo: Carlos León-Xjiménez)
For another Berliners´ self-reflexive Monument
A cultural heritage has to do with an important high value inside an specific cultural tradition, as a human realization or as a contribution to the mankind. But what if the label of cultural heritage is set to a social convention that is perceived as a normal behavior? Do we celebrate ourselves as "living heritage"? Monuments normally are a matter of scale, big scales. Cyprien Gaillard has been researching on monuments, ruins, re-enactments of memorials... all of this exercises, has been dealing with the memory. In the current exhibition in Berlin at KunstWerke, Gaillard creates a monument to be experienced. The title of the exhibition recalls the action to be done "The recovery of the discovery". And paraphrases all the culture of the museums... repositories of cultural corpses from the past.
Gaillard shows a single work: a pyramid (around 5 meters height) made by closed beer boxes of the Turkish beer Efes. There are many significations hanging around. Specially if one links to the aesthetics of disappearance worked by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. But let´s avoid misunderstandings, here the proposal is site-specific, and deals with particular historical and social layers. Migration, alcoholism, forgetting, celebration, party... different aspects that point out the pulse of the city of Berlin, and not only because the Turkish population is the biggest immigrant community in Germany.
The installation, and how was performed by the visitors on the opening creates the real work, the social-sculpture of the international art-scene settle down in Berlin, a scene focused in and for itself... creating a self-reflexive monument (for the rampant hipster wave?), specially in these times of amplified hedonism. In itself, a particular cultural heritage. No more, no less.
Maybe, in a way as monument for the current creative-class in this neo-liberal times, a celebratory platform for PR. Just another relational toy, in the tradition of the established aesthetics.
Carlos León-Xjiménez Berlin, March 27th 2011
(photos by Carlos León-Xjiménez)
An here, a previous work done by Gaillard: PRUITT-IGOE FALLS (2008) where he reenacts the demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project (1954-1972) in Saint Louis (Missouri, USA). The Pruit-Igoe is an emblematic experience of a failed urban development of a social housing project, that highlighted the social differences and policies on urban development.
Another testimony of Gaillard´s interest in the contemporary production of decay and ruins.
Cyprien Gaillard, PRUITT-IGOE FALLS, 2008
Courtesy: Cosmic, Paris and Laura Bartlett, London. Photo: Nils Klinger
Photo from the text on: http://www.fridericianum-kassel.de/gaillard.html?&L=1
