Kunsthalle Bremerhaven presents Luzie Meyer

 

Asking “How to continue on from here?” is the act of getting oneself oriented. It so denotes a point in time from which life and the universe begin to develop, and from which paths appear that we can or cannot follow. Orientations are a part of contexts; they come from the way society interacts with us, providing us with directions, pointing out boundaries, and advising us on the best courses of action. As a result, orientations are not “free,” but rather are moulded by the outside, and as such, they are always infused with some form of “violence” or dominance. But “if orientations point to the future, to what we are approaching,” as Sara Ahmed says, “then they also provide possibilities of changing direction and taking other pathways.” Disorientation and the alienation of the familiar accompany this departure from what is recommended. We can only assume a different viewpoint on the world and create new futures in this way, after all. The loss of something or of “oneself” would not then be the cause of disorientation, but rather the opportunity or even the requirement to follow different avenues, assume different roles, and live in the world. If life is, will be, and, in the best case scenario, should involve change, then it is about orienting oneself toward disorientation, or disorienting oneself once more repeatedly.

 

For her exhibition Cyclic Indirections, Luzie Meyer has created a sound and video installation using the Simon Loschen lighthouse in Bremerhaven as its starting point and setting. The Simon Loschen lighthouse is the oldest land-based lighthouse on the North Sea coast and was constructed between 1853 and 1855 based on designs by the architect of the same name. Lighthouses serve as landmarks, provide navigational guidance, and alert sailors to potential hazards. Along with a series of pictures that serve as a form of origination process documentation, Meyer also exhibits a video piece that is also based on the image and sound data she gathered in the lighthouse. These pieces continue the installation, opening it up to new possibilities, and they interact with one another as well as allude to one another and face one another. This period of intervention is ongoing. The spatial staging of the artwork undermines the architecture of the Kunsthalle in a similar way that the orientation of the lighthouse’s building appears to dissolve in the filmic works. A second set of images, which were taken on location in the Kunsthalle, depicts the institution’s director as a marionette that she inhabits and personalizes. In her exhibition, Meyer presents a web of works that opens up a space of language, image, and sound unfolding meaning, poetry, and reflection without, however, naming anything specific. Meyer’s work is infused with moments of a poetic and fragmentary language practice, techniques of musique concrète, and elements alluding to structural film. “Meaning” is revealed in this context through the circling around of objects, allusions, ambivalence, fragments, gaps, and interstices, as well as through orientation and disorientation, i.e., not just in what is present but also in what is not. On the levels of image, sound, language, and architecture, it is in the disturbance, interruption, deconstruction, and breaks, so to speak.

 

Cyclic Indirections is Luzie Meyer’s first institutional solo exhibition. It will be accompanied by a series of events, including an artist talk with the artist and a conversation about her practice with Kathrin Bentele (Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf) and Stefanie Kleefeld (Kunsthalle and Kunstmuseum Bremerhaven).