Thomas Feuerstein: PSYCHOPROSA
May 29–August 30, 2015
Opening: May 28, 7pm
Trevor Paglen: The Octopus
June 20–August 30, 2015
Opening: June 19, 7pm (as part of the opening of the RAY 2015 Triennial at MMK Frankfurt). 8:30pm at Frankfurter Kunstverein: Trevor Paglen will announce the winner of the Eagle-Eye Photo Contest
Frankfurter Kunstverein
Markt 44
60311 Frankfurt
Germany
Hours: Tuesday–Friday 11am–7pm,
Thursday 11am–9pm, Saturday–Sunday 10am–7pm
From May to August, the program at Frankfurter Kunstverein focuses on monographic artistic positions that raise socially relevant topics in the broader context of art and science, taking another look at realities in today’s society and what they can be in the future.
Thomas Feuerstein: PSYCHOPROSA
Thomas Feuerstein’s exhibition PSYCHOPROSA hovers somewhere between art and science. It consists of a single, interconnected installation that serves as the incubator for the element PSILAMIN and for the production of slime. Tubes transport green and colorless substances through the spaces of the Frankfurter Kunstverein. They incorporate laboratory vessels, apparatuses, and cooling systems into a narrative strand, while retaining their functional purpose in an experimental set-up throughout the duration of the exhibition. The exhibition space becomes a live laboratory, in which the artist himself has synthesized a new molecule, PSILAMIN, from algae and fungi and declared it to be a molecular sculpture. In his exhibition, Thomas Feuerstein weaves knowledge taken from art, philosophy and literature, as well as biotechnology, economics, and politics into an artistic narrative, which discloses questions about basic existential parameters and the origin of life.
Catalogue: A comprehensive catalogue with numerous colour illustrations and texts in German and English by Beate Ermacora, Thomas Feuerstein, and Jürgen Tabor accompanies the exhibition. It includes a conversation between Graham Harman and Thomas Feuerstein; 240 pages; Snoeck Verlag, Cologne 2015.
The exhibition is a collaboration with the Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, and the Kunstverein Heilbronn, and was made possible through kind support from Hessische Kulturstiftung, the Hessen State Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts, the Federal Chancellery of Austria in Vienna, the Province of the Tyrol, the Austrian Cultural Forum in Berlin, Merck KGaA, ORF Kunstradio, Rehau AG + Co and allbuyone GmbH.
Trevor Paglen: The Octopus
Together with American artist Trevor Paglen, the Frankfurter Kunstverein has developed a comprehensive exhibition titled The Octopus, which deals with topics such as surveillance and political influence. In addition to a wide range of existing images and photography series, the exhibition will show new projects and video works along with extensive materials and documents from Paglen’s investigatory research practice. The sculpture Autonomy Cube, an open Wi-Fi hotspot, illustrates together with Eagle-Eye Photo Contest: Landscapes of Surveillance, a photo competition created for the exhibition and open to the public, Paglen’s new artistic approach: he would like his work to trigger actions that have an influence on society and that reach out beyond the institutional spaces of art into the real world. The winning photographs of the contest will be presented in the exhibition. On June 21, Trevor Paglen will receive the cultural prize of the German Photographic Association (DGPh) for his work at the Frankfurter Kunstverein.
The exhibition takes place within the RAY 2015 Photography Projects Frankfurt Rhine/Main and is also a collaboration with the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders” at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main. The media partner is the Journal Frankfurt.
Accompanying program: The exhibitions will be accompanied by an extensive program of panel discussions, expert lectures, and excursions. Central to this are the contributions from the Cluster of Excellence, “The Formation of Normative Orders,” which has organized the panel discussion titled “The Art of Surveillance” to take place on June 20 with Trevor Paglen (artist), Prof. Dr. Klaus Günther (Professor of Legal Theory, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law, Co-Speaker of the Cluster of Excellence), Dr. Valentin Rauer (sociologist and postdoctoral researcher in the Cluster of Excellence), Franziska Nori (Director Frankfurter Kunstverein), moderator: Rebecca Caroline Schmidt (Managing Director of the Cluster of Excellence), and the lecture “The (In)visibility of Power” by Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst (Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy, Co-Speaker of the Cluster) to take place on July 22. Additional highlights include the lecture “Macromolecular Complexes – The Switches of Life” by Prof. Dr. Volker Doetsch (Executive Director, Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Goethe University, Frankfurt / Main) on July 2 and a guided tour of the exhibition PSYCHOPROSA with the artist Thomas Feuerstein on July 9.
Information and press contact:
Julia Wittwer (Head of PR), T +49 69 219314 30/40 / presse [at] fkv.de / www.fkv.de
*Top: Thomas Feuerstein, ACCADEMIA DEI SECRETI, 2015. Installation view, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck. Photo: WEST. Fotostudio. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2015. Bottom: Trevor Paglen, They Watch the Moon (Nr. 87), 2010. © the artist. Courtesy Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne.
