ATLANTIS I
Hidden Histories – New Identities
12.07 – 13.09 2009
Venue: Schloss Marquardt,
Hauptstrasse 14,
14467 Potsdam-Marquardt,
Germany
MARTIN ASSIG: Germany – painting / sketches / sculpture
ROBERT BARTA: Czech Republic / Germany – installation
DENNIS FEDDERSEN: Germany – sculpture
GREGOR HILDEBRANDT: Germany – objects / installation
SABINE HORNIG: Germany – installation / photography
LISA JUNGHANSS: Germany – video
ŠEJLA KAMERIĆ: Bosnia-Herzegovina – photography / installation
KATARZYNA KOZYRA: Poland – video
DEIMANTAS NARKEVIČIUS: Lithuania – video
THOMAS SCHEIBITZ: Germany – painting / sculpture
Artistic Director: Dr. Arvid Boellert
Curator: Mark Gisbourne
Over the years, Rohkunstbau has established itself as an exhibition renowned for its focus on site-specific, contemporary art – and this year, it is celebrating its 15th anniversary. To mark this occasion, Arvid Boellert, co-founder of Rohkunstbau, has chosen “Atlantis I. Hidden Histories – New Identities” as the theme. For centuries, the myth of the fabled lost island of Atlantis has inspired the imaginations of writers, artists and thinkers. The 2009 and 2010 Rohkunstbau exhibitions focus on the ideas of civil society and nationhood developed around this legendary island state which, even in the Classical world, led to a dispute between Plato and Aristotle over elitist and egalitarian social theories.
Down the centuries, Atlantis has been repeatedly re-interpreted, both philosophically and politically, as the bearer of the most diverse notions of dispersal and re-formation, and a benchmark for what has been lost or re-discovered. Now, against this background and twenty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, it provides a leitmotif in the search for hidden histories and new identities on both sides of the former Berlin Wall. For the 2009 exhibition, curator Mark Gisbourne has invited ten artists from Germany and Eastern Europe to create site-specific works exploring this complex of themes, each working from their own biographical and personal perspective.
The elaborate manor house of Schloss Marquardt, idyllically located on the banks of the Schlänitzsee lake, is part of Potsdam’s beautiful landscape of palaces and grounds. At the same time, though, it still bears the scars of the Second World War and the division of Europe. Decay and revival, destruction and rebirth – all those contraries come together here in this Prussian Arcadia and flow into the artists’ works.
On the former inner-German boarder and crossing the borderlines of Austria and Slovakia, Greek and Bulgaria exhibitions projects are going to take place. Visual artists from Germany, Bulgaria and Greek will trace the classical ideas of democracy, discuss their different approaches, measure their dimensions and will reflect about the future. This European project was developed by Rohkunstbau together with the current coordinator of Heinrich Böll Stiftung Brandenburg. Partners are “Space” from Bratislava, “Artbox” from Salonika, the “Art Today Association” from Plovdiv and “Nuova Icona” from Venice.
Venue: Schloss Marquardt, Hauptstrasse 14, 14467 Potsdam-Marquardt, Germany
More information at: +49 30 – 48 62 08 00
Online at: www.rohkunstbau.de and www.atlantisprojects.eu
Open: 12 July – 13 September 2009, Official Opening: 11 July, 4.30 pm
Opening times: Thu + Fri 2pm 7pm, Sat + Sun 12noon-7pm
Free admission under the age of 16. Concessions for pupils and students, registered unemployed people and people with severe disabilities.
The XVI Rohkunstbau is funded by:
the Kulturstiftung der Länder (Cultural Foundation of the Federal States), the Federal Government’s Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the European Commission’s cultural programme, the Land of Brandenburg, EMB Potsdam, the city of Potsdam, and the Friends of Rohkunstbau, Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Berlin.
Organised by the GSE Gesellschaft für StadtEntwicklung gemeinnützige GmbH
Press Office and Photos: Bluhm PR, Sylke Bluhm, info@bluhmpr.de
