Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) presents Michel Majerus and Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries from December 17, 2022–February 5, 2023.
Michel Majerus
December 17, 2022 – February 5, 2023
Curator: Michaela Richter
Michel Majerus’ work negotiates societal paradigms that emerged in the 1990s and continue to have an impact on us today: the beginning of the virtual era with the increasing presence of computers and the internet, the development of mass media, the world of advertising, and pop and youth culture. His large-scale paintings, sprawling wall pieces, and colossal installations are artistic responses to the digital turn and the overflow of imagery that characterizes today’s social networks. His work exposes a non-hierarchical and discursive view of the image in which quotes, seriality, and temporality play significant roles, blurring the lines between the art world and ordinary life.
Majerus’ installations are highlighted as a major way of expression in his practice in the show at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein. They include a big video installation, important wall works and spatial designs, as well as sculptural models created for site-specific, large-scale projects and seen for the first time here. They represent his artwork’s intermedial distinctiveness, his thoughts on mass media, and his strategy of establishing places for nuanced aesthetic experiences.
Michel Majerus 2022 pays unparalleled respect to the artist’s multi-layered output in five solo exhibits at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Kunstverein in Hamburg, Michel Majerus Estate, and neugerriemschneider, twenty years after his death. At the same time, thirteen German museums are displaying works by Michel Majerus from their collections. The exhibition series is complemented by a thorough bilingual publication (German/English) by DCV Verlag, Berlin, with texts by Cory Arcangel, Karen Archey, Diedrich Diederichsen, Brigitte Franzen, and Rirkrit Tiravanija.
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries: PLEASE MISTAKE ME FOR NOBODY
December 17, 2022 – February 5, 2023
Curator: Arkadij Koscheew
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, an art partnership comprised of Young-hae Chang and Marc Voge, will have their first institutional solo exhibition in Germany at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (yhchang.com). PLEASE MISTAKE ME FOR NOBODY gathers together works from 2000 to 2020 that explore the concept of paranoia. Works like OPERATION NUKOREA (2003) have a particular resonance in our times, which are increasingly marked by wars and nuclear dangers that border on reality. Using colorful and unsettling language, the piece imagines a nuclear strike by North Korea on the South Korean capital of Seoul. The majority of the works on display were translated into German for the first time expressly for this exhibition.
Since its inception in the late 1990s, YHCHI has evolved a particular style through its exploration of cultural identity, material inequities, (police) violence, the intersection of fact and fiction, and geopolitical realities such as Korea’s separation. The art duo’s works are distinguished by a high level of abstraction, which also serves as its signature: YHCHI’s diverse ideas and interests are nearly entirely expressed in black text on a white background. The text is synced to music, which is frequently self-composed, and is built up phrase by sentence, word by word, or letter by letter.
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.)
Chausseestraße 128/129
10115 Berlin
Germany
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 12am–6pm,
Thursday 12am–8pm
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