Zinny/Maidagan at daadgalerie

July 22–September 25, 2022

Dolores Zinny and Juan Maidagan, two previous fellows, are showcasing works they’ve produced since relocating to Berlin in the early 2000s in their exhibition at the daadgalerie. Collaborative projects, Zinny/installations, Maidagan’s paintings, and sculptural objects explore the ways in which space is used as a commons resource in poetic and frequently abstract ways. The daadgalerie-exclusive piece Zeit in Zahlen/Numbers, which was initially intended for the Oranienstrasse building’s outer facade, explores the meaning of passing time in a situation of crisis and social isolation. How does the experience of public space and our everyday surroundings change when community conditions are uncertain? How does our relationship to the present and our awareness of the present change when we are presented with the period following our own existence?

A presentation in the exhibition space was created to explain the concept behind the project and situate it in relation to Zinny/earlier Maidagan’s works after it became clear that the planned intervention could not be implemented due, among other things, to the pandemic situation limiting opportunities for dialogue and exchange with other residents in the building. The exhibition’s name, Keine Flagge in der Sonne/No Flag in the Sun, is taken from the title of a piece that Zinny/Maidagan made in 2003 for The Showroom in London and is currently on display in a new iteration at the daadgalerie. Leaded Seams, a new version of the piece that was initially displayed at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in 2010 and subsequently at the Cartagena Biennial in 2014 in Columbia, is now being shown for the second time at the daadgalerie. The pieces UCI Library Unit One, Arch William Pereira, 1965 and Thirteen Studies of Horizon’s Line, both produced in 2013 for the exhibition Cabo Nombre/Cape Name at the CAC Gallery in Irvine, California, as well as pieces of the installation created for the exhibition Such a Good Cover at the daadgalerie’s former location on Kurfürstenstrasse in 2003, serve as examples of the artistic techniques and supplies that Zinny/Maidagan frequently uses in their works. Their paintings demonstrate how the passage of time does not always alter or democratize how we act or think when viewed in the perspective of the current state of world politics. At the same time, the flag appears to be a symbol of potential regeneration and plurality in Zinny/works, Maidagan’s which have faith in the future’s possibilities.

Juan Maidagan and Dolores Zinny currently split their time between Berlin and Baltimore, where Zinny has served as the Rinehart School of Sculpture’s program director at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) since 2021. The creative team has participated in various solo and group exhibitions across the globe.

The exhibition at the daadgalerie was conceived and curated by Melanie Roumiguière.

DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program

One of the most known residencies for foreign artists and cultural practitioners in the domains of visual arts, film, literature, and music & sound is the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. It grants residencies in Berlin each year to about twenty exceptional cultural producers. The residency gives the selected fellows the freedom to concentrate on their innovative ideas, projects, and research endeavors without being pressured to accomplish anything. Meetings with other artists and cultural producers inspire transdisciplinary collaboration and launch learning processes that are reciprocal.