Kush Badhwar, Yara Haskiel, Ash Moniz, Mykola Ridnyi: Transgressions Of The Real

Büchsenhausen Fellowship Program for Art and Theory presents the exhibition: Transgressions Of The Real, curated by Andrei Siclodi.

In Transgressions of the Real, the participants of the Büchsenhausen Fellowship Program 2020–21  Kush Badhwar, Yara Haskiel, Ash Moniz and Mykola Ridnyi present works that hypostatize the real as socio-political scenarios of the present. The phenomenon of “flags of convenience” and the transformations concerning legislation and employment associated with this “territorial expansion” of national states (Ash Moniz), the representation of violence without reproducing violent images (Mykola Rindnyi), counter-narratives of the achievement of statehood in regard to Telangana, India’s youngest state (Kush Badhwar), as well as strategies of commemmoration at socially contested sites in Thessaloniki (Yara Haskiel) constitute the thematic focus upon which the artistic works have been developed.

Lacan understood the real as “something that absolutely resists symbolization”1 and at the same time is ejected from the ego.2 Thus, this iconoclastic conception of the “unimaginable” does not tolerate any engagement beyond the constructed reality. And yet, it continuously resonates within, as its imagination would be then just as impossible. Consequently, the works assembled in this exhibition can be viewed in at least two ways which may well overlap. On the one hand, the exhibition refers to a violation of the taboo, an unforeseen transgression of the real, capable of shaking reality in its naturalized fixation, which in turn enables disarrangements of perception. On the other hand, it is an attempt to hold up a broken mirror to hegemonic narratives of contemporary social order that are still entrenched in the myth of the national state. In combination with reflections, shadows and fragments of largely neglected aspects of these orders, this mirror can reveal a possibly unexpected potential of emancipatory knowledge.

Hours: Wednesday–Friday 12–6pm, Saturday 11am–3pm

Kush Badhwar is an artist and filmmaker operating across media, art, cinematic and other social contexts. He is interested in the ecology of sound and image across stretches of time and political change. He believes in the potential of research and collectivity. To this end, he has worked closely with wala, Word Sound Power, Frontyard Projects and Khanabadosh.

Yara Haskiel is a video artist and researcher. Central themes of her work are the connections between memory and (dis-) placement of minor and forgotten narratives and their trans-generational affective constellations. Further, she focuses on micro politics and its precarities. Yara Haskiel generates video essays and multi-screen installations that embrace reflexivity by experimenting with video diary, found footage and new media.

Ash Moniz is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice spans performance, installation, video and film. Their research deals with the securitization of supply-chain logistics and its labor. Through interviews and performative collaborations, they work with the ways that stories are told, deconstructing the temporality of narrative structure in Just-In-Time transportation logistics. Working with artifacts, documents, and found media that span from London 1792 to Sokhna 2013, Moniz “plots” systematic procedures of motion within the flows of value, subject hood, and causality.

Mykola Ridnyi is an artist, filmmaker and essayist based in Kyiv, Ukraine. He works across media, ranging from early political actions in public space to the fusion of site-specific installations, photography and the moving image which constitute the current focus of his practice. His way of reflecting social and political reality draws on the contrast between fragility and resilience of individual stories and collective histories. A connection with alternative times and phenomena, the influence of the past to the present and future, and the pressing polemic of manipulating historical memory born out of contemporary political agendas are among the main issues revealed in his engagements, initiatives, and projects.