Jimmie Durham
Here at the Center
6 June–2 August 2015
Takuji Kogo, John Miller
Open to All Ages and Ethnicities
n.b.k. Showroom
9 June–31 July 2015
Opening: Friday, 5 June, 7pm
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.)
Chausseestraße 128 / 129
10115 Berlin
Germany
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday noon–6pm,
Thursday noon–8 pm
www.nbk.org
Jimmie Durham
Here at the Center
The artist, poet and activist Jimmie Durham (b. 1940 in the US, living in Berlin) began to work as a sculptor in 1964, when at the same time, since the early 1960s, he was politically active in the US-American civil rights movement. In 1973, he graduated in Fine Art in Geneva and returned to the United States. In the 1970s, he was a co-founder and chairman of the International Indian Treaty Council at the United Nations, where his work, among others, led to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Durham became internationally known in the 1980s with objects and sculptures that were made from materials such as stones, animal skulls and bones, carved wood, and ironically related to Euro-centric notions of “Indian art.” In 1987, Durham left the United States, first settled in Mexico and since 1994 in Europe. Among other places he lived in Dublin, Marseilles, Rome and Berlin and ever since observed the political developments of the European Union. The relationship between history and environment, architecture and monumentality, and a critical attitude towards political structures of power and narratives of national identity are often at the center of his artistic and literary work. In sculptures, film and video works, drawings and texts Durham describes behaviors and norms of coexistence in different cultures and societies. The exhibition at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein presents videos, drawings and sculptures that have been created between 1995 and 2015 in the light of Durham’s exploration of the Eurasian continent and the complex geopolitical and social fabric of “Europe.” In a large number of his works Durham particularly deals with the history of Europe and its impact on the world, for example in the video installation Still Life with Architectural Elements (2000), the sculpture Eurasia, a Scent (1997) and the series of collages 1948 (2012). Alongside other video works, including those created in cooperation with Maria Thereza Alves, Alves / Durham / Berlin (2000) and Grunewald (2006), there are three new sculptures by Jimmie Durham on show, French Anatomy (2015), Not All Questions Have Reasonable Meanings (2015) and The Weight of All Flesh (2015).
Jimmie Durham (b. 1940 in the US, living in Berlin) is an artist, poet, essayist and political activist. His work has most recently been presented a. o.: Venice Biennale (2015; 2005; 2003; 2001; 1999); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2014; 2003; 1993); Museo Madre, Naples (2013; 2008); MuHKA – Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (2012); Swiss Institute, New York (2012); Documenta, Kassel (2012; 1992); 29th São Paulo Biennial (2010); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010); Kunsthalle Bern (2010); Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris (2009); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2006).
Curated by Marius Babias.
Program
Thursday, June 11, 7pm
Europa von innen
Jimmie Durham und die Imaginationen der Alten Welt
(Inside Europe—Jimmie Durham and the imaginations of the old world)
Lecture by Stefan Ripplinger (journalist and author, Berlin)
In German language
Thursday, July 2, 7pm
The Material Power of the Art Work. Appreciating the World(s) Jimmie Durham is giving rise to
Lecture by Yrjö Haila (Professor of Environmental Policy, University Tampere, Finland)
In English language
Sunday, August 2, 6pm
n.b.k. Sommerfest
Concert with Sven-Åke Johansson (composer, musician and visual artist, Berlin), courtyard party and barbecue with Jimmie Burgers from Zagreus Projekt, Berlin, and selected craft beers by Berlin’s Spent Brewers Collective
Publication
With the exhibition comes a publication as part of the n.b.k. book series “Ausstellungen” by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne, the artist’s book In Europe, 96 pages, with color illustrations.
Takuji Kogo, John Miller
Open to All Ages and Ethnicities
n.b.k. Showroom
The exhibition Open to All Ages and Ethnicities at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein presents six new songs by Robot, a virtual band founded by Kogo and Miller in 2003. The songs and music videos by Robot use various personal ads as text sources. Robot’s music is fully synthetic, both the vocals and the instrumentation are produced electronically. Takuji Kogo works as a solo artist as well as in cooperation under the title *Candy Factory Projects. The platform is mobile and performs in various institutions, organizes curatorial projects, exhibitions, internet-projects and publications. Since 2007, *Candy Factory Projects host the Kitakyushu Biennial and have cooperated with Federico Baronello, Mike Bode, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Charles Lim Yi Yong, Keiichi Miyagawa and John Miller. John Miller became known to a wider audience in the 1990s. The artist plated found objects, sculptures, mannequins and mirrors with a thick pastose, brown coat of paint. In recent years, gold leaf succeeded as the ubiquitous surface of his works. Miller consistently works in series, in which distinctive marks of artistic production models, formal aesthetic constructs and mental proliferations of prevailing value systems are colliding. Post-conceptual strategies and minimalist aesthetics are at the same time caricatured, monopolized and undermined.
Curated by Kathrin Becker
