let's crystallize

 

Marika Seidler (DK) & Michelle Eistrup (DK/US/CARIB)
Celina Gonzalez Sueyro (ARG)
Morten Schelde (DK) & Gabriela Albergaria (POR)

 

October 26. - November 23.

 

Opening October 25. from 7 - 11pm

Preview October 25. 4 - 5pm for the press and others interested,
the artists will be present to discuss their work.

 

 

Thursday October 31. at 9 pm in Z-bar / at 11.30 pm in Sparwasser HQ: two concerts with Matti Kallioinen and EMMON from the music label Abnormal Audio, Stockholm.

 

 

Press release

Press photo 300 dpi

 

In "let's crystallize," Sparwasser HQ and the participating artists explore different ways of breaking with traditional systems of knowledge. The exhibition broadens the arena of knowledge to include expertise and fields of study aside from those of verified scientific practice and western cosmology: personal experience, belief, faith, and individual perception are all valid systems for producing meaning. "let's crystallize" reflects a general human need to interpret the world and to communicate thoughts, experiences, and discoveries.

Post-colonialism is characterized by contact between cultures and continents, a break with older systems of domination, and a re-examination of western enlightenment as the primary world model. In this context, "let's crystallize" presents various methods for entering into other spheres of meaning; the exhibition attempts to see from within - another belief, another world, and another individual or group. The pursuit of meaning becomes also a search for new modes of expression. Through the breaking of boundaries between places and people, the visual becomes a tool for communicating subjective knowledge.

The cooperation between artists is one such method for sharing perception. Collective production and the merging of disciplines are traits of "Housing Spirits" by Marika Seidler and Michelle Eistrup, and "A room of ones own" by Gabriela Albergaria and Morten Schelde. Both works are the products of collaborations. "Housing Spirits" combines, furthermore, art practice, sociology, and knowledge of Voodoo practitioners. Although Celina Gonzalez Sueyro works alone, her installation, "Hunt picnic," incorporates multiple layers that seem to conjure up the existence of a new reality.

A narrative element is common to the work of all participants. Narration means inventing a "truth," creating a basic set of rules by which we navigate daily life. Linking things together, narration makes our reality.

In Seidler & Eistrup's videos, storytelling consolidates a collective reality. Interviews relate many versions of the same experience, thereby establishing an almost scientific proof of the existence of (sexual) relationships between the living and the dead. As we step in and out of different realms of interaction, we become unsure where the boundaries lie. In the end, we find ourselves caught up, participants in this unusual experience. Seidler & Eistrup's installation, "Le Soleil de Minuit," consists of a video projection. In the adjacent room, three videos are available for viewing on a small screen.

In Albergaria & Scheldes work "A room of ones own," the viewer is torn between a concrete physical space and an imaginary one. The work questions our notions of reality. Can we find the language to speak about the "other" world, the abnormal and phantasmagoric? Or do fairy tales and the illogical or fantastic represent ideas rooted in the obscure and conceptual, the far reaches of our minds? The history of the drawing presented at Sparwasser HQ, a collaboration between the two artists, goes back to 2001, when both were invited, by curator Henrikke Nielsen, to show together at Galerie Kamm, Berlin.

In her scenografic installation, "Hunt Picnic," Sueyro establishes a landscape of characters. Is the work a product of pure ecstatic thought? Sueyro tells stories so substantial that they could hardly be communicated in a three-hour theater play. With small changes to the room, like cut up wallpaper or cutouts from street posters mounted on bases to resemble figures in a three dimensional collage, she carries us into a story of unpredictable coincidences.

 

 

SPARWASSER HQ
OFFENSIVE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART AND COMMUNICATION
TORSTRASSE 161, 10115 BERLIN MITTE
+49 30 21803001
+49 30 44047981
MOBIL 0179 6705859
WWW.SPARWASSERHQ.DE
MAIL@SPARWASSERHQ.DE
WE-FR 4-7 PM / SA 2-6 PM

Z-BAR
BERGSTRASSE 2, 10115 BERLIN MITTE
AROUND THE CORNER FROM SPARWASSER HQ