History Will Repeat Itself
Strategies of Re-enactment in Contemporary (Media) Art and Performance
A cooperation between Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund, and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
Hartware MedienKunstVerein at PHOENIX Halle Dortmund, Germany: June 9 – September 23, 2007
Opening: Friday, June 8, 2007, 19:00
KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, Germany
November 18, 2007-January 13, 2008
Opening: Saturday, November 17, 2007
Concept: Inke Arns
Curated by: Inke Arns and Gabriele Horn
Co-curator: Katharina Fichtner
The exhibition History Will Repeat Itself illuminates current strategies of re-enactment in contemporary (media) art and performance, and presents the positions and strategies of 23 international artists. A cooperative project by Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV) Dortmund and KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, this is the first comprehensive exhibition project on the subject of re-enactment in Germany.
Unlike popular historical re-enactments, artistic re-enactments are not simply affirming what has happened in the past, but rather they are questioning the present via repeating or re-enacting historical events that have left their traces in the collective memory. Re-enactments are artistic interrogations of media images that try to scrutinise the reality of the images, while at the same time pointing towards the fact that the collective memory is significantly informed by media images.
Participating artists include: Guy Ben-Ner (IL/DE), Walter Benjamin (YU), Irina Botea (RO/US), C-Level (US), Daniela Comani (IT/DE), Jeremy Deller (GB), Rod Dickinson (GB), Nikolai Evreinov (RU), Omer Fast (IL/DE), Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard (GB), Heike Gallmeier (DE), Felix Gmelin (SE), Pierre Huyghe (FR), Evil Knievel (US), Korpys/Loeffler (DE), Zbigniew Libera (PL), Robert Longo (US), Tom McCarthy (GB), Frédéric Moser / Philippe Schwinger (CH), Collier Schorr (US), Kerry Tribe (US), T.R. Uthco & Ant Farm (US), Artur Zmijewski (PL).
In Dortmund, the exhibition will run in parallel (9 June – 23 September) to Documenta 12 in Kassel and skulptur.projekte muenster in Munster, Germany. The venue of the show is Hartware MedienKunstVerein at PHOENIX Halle Dortmund, a spectacular 1895 factory hall measuring 2.200 square meters belonging to a giant former steel production plant.
Located in the formerly heavily industrialized region of the Ruhr valley, Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV) Dortmund is one of the leading institutions for media art in today’s Germany. Founded in 1996, HMKV serves as a platform for the production, presentation, education on and contextualisation of contemporary and experimental media art.
Please note that Dortmund is only 30 min. by train from Munster, and 2,5 hours from Kassel.
Later this year, the show will travel to Berlin and be on display at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art from 18 November 2007 until 13 January 2008.
The exhibition History Will Repeat Itself is funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation, Kunststiftung NRW, Staatskanzlei NRW, Bundesamt für Kultur BAK (Switzerland), NRW Kultursekretariat Wuppertal, The Henry Moore Foundation, Pro Helvetia, and The British Council.
The program of Hartware MedienKunstVerein at PHOENIX Halle Dortmund is supported by Kulturbuero and by Wirtschaftsfoerderung der Stadt Dortmund.
The cultural programs of KW Institute for Contemporary Art are made possible thanks to the support of The Governing Mayor of Berlin – Senate Chancellery – Cultural Affairs.
For more information, check out
www.hmkv.de/dyn/e_program_exhibitions/detail.php?nr=2104&rubric=exhibitions&
For press material, please contact Roland Kentrup, kentrup@zk.nrw-online.de
Venue and opening hours:
HMKV at PHOENIX Halle Dortmund (exhibition venue)
Thursday and Friday 11 – 22
Saturday and Sunday 11 – 20
Hochofenstrasse / corner Rombergstrasse
Dortmund-Hoerde
How to get there / Map:
www.hmkv.de/dyn/e_contact_roaddescription/
Hartware MedienKunstVerein (office)
Guentherstr. 65
44143 Dortmund
Germany
T 49.231.823106
F 49.231.8820240
info@hmkv.de
www.hmkv.de
