NICOLE SIX/PAUL PETRITSCH
July 21st-September 24th, 2006
Opening: Thu, 20th July 2006, 8 p.m.
GAK
Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst Bremen
Teerhof 21, D-28199 Bremen
T 49 421 500 897, F 49 421 593 337
office [at] gak-bremen.de
Opening hours: TueSun 11a.m. 6 p.m., Thu 9.m., Mon closed
The Austrian artist duo Nicole Six and Paul Petritsch explore and measure the world around them with the aid of concrete experiments. Over the years, their test arrangementswhich at times border on the absurdhave led to an archive of poetic parables on mans exposure to uncertainties within space. This archive is concerned with the testing of limits and, possibly, the overcoming of limitations; with confronting the fear of falling; with not trying to escape when the ground disappears beneath one; with throwing oneself into the wind; with fighting fatigue, but also, simply and radically, with dismissing established parameters such as gravity as a law of nature. In short: with putting to the test the security of space so familiar to us in everyday life and, in the process, disconcerting the body itself on an existential level.
Again and again in their videos and photographs, Six/Petritsch place themselves and the spectators in situations in which the meaningfulness of what they do is challenged. In deliberately provoked extreme situations, they make actions and perceptions appear doomed to failure while, at the same time, the rooms and the way they are perceived change fundamentally. In the video Raum (2004)(Space), for instance, the protagonist must not only constantly re-adjust to the changing constellations above and below her. What was once firmly established as below is now turned on end so that the figure is ableor so it would seemto overcome the force of gravity. The logic of the film turns real movement around, thus, in turn, undermining the meaning of the images in almost carnivalesque fashion. And: The reversed images of the camera also have an effect on the way the viewers find their corporal and spatial orientation, and ultimately on how they respond to the projection and the depictions of movement. The video then becomes a balancing act not only for the protagonist but for the viewers as well.
The exhibition in the GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst Bremen is the first solo exhibition of Nicole Six (b. 1971) and Paul Petritsch (b. 1968). They live in Vienna and have been working together since 1997.
Curator: Gabriele Mackert
Programme:
Stabil/Fragil. Die architektonisch-psychologischen Konstrukte von Six/Petritsch (Stabile/Fragile. The architectural-psychological constructs of Six/Petritsch)
Sunday, 3rd September 2006, 4 p.m.
Lecture by Doris Krystof, Curator, K 21 Kunstsammlung NRW, Dusseldorf
Artist Talk
Sunday, 24st September 2006, 4 p.m.
with Nicole Six and Paul Petritsch
The GAK is funded by the Senator for Culture, Bremen