EXCLUSIVITIES–EXKLUSIVITÄTEN

On March 20, the program EXCLUSIVITIES–EXKLUSIVITÄTEN begins with an exhibition, podcasts and workshops. This second project cycle of Agnieszka Roguski’s IN:VISIBILITIES program series deals with questions of exclusivity within a society whose medial confines are becoming increasingly hybrid, while social, cultural and economic borders are gaining in importance. The program opens on March 19 with a solo show by Berlin-based artist Zuzanna Czebatul.

Exclusivity can be both luxury and necessity, a sign of belonging as well as a display of difference. It is ambivalent and multifaceted, always present where power is negotiated. Exclusivity also becomes visible beyond the VIP area when it is used to make hierarchies effective; for example, those between institution and individual, observer and observed, subject and object, showing and shown. These relationships are accelerated, multiplied and modified in increasingly networked environments. So what does exclusivity mean in a time when sharing and participating are considered basic conditions of a digitalised society? What privileges and potentials does it make invisible? And how can an art institution relate to this?

The second episode of the IN:VISIBILITIES program series, EXCLUSIVITIES–EXCLUSIVITÄTEN, underscores the dividing lines and contours that emerge just within seemingly connected and transparent environments. The focus is on the relationships of visibility and invisibility within an everyday life, in which the boundaries between analogue and digital have dissolved just as much as those between private and public. How can exclusivities—in their explicit ambiguity—be transferred spatially and medially into an art institution, thereby questioning its own mechanisms of exclusion? What claims and norms do they follow? At the centre of this project cycle are intersectional aspects of class and the display, embodiment and repetition of codes or modes of representation attributed to them. In addition to the economies, values and hierarchies that emerge here, the question is if and how exclusivities can be used as protective spaces or moments of empowerment beyond omnipresent visibility.

For the exhibition opening on March 19, Zuzanna Czebatul covers the M.1 with a scaffolding tarp. The building is closed off to the outside, while the exhibition opens up into the public space and is always accessible; thus asking what happens to art when it is perceived as an everyday-looking reconstruction phase. Czebatul’s work THE JOY OF BEING THE CAUSE shows what makes institutional exhibition spaces exclusive: the personal signature of individuals in relation to the participation possibilities of many. In this sense, the institution is not only wrapped up, but entangled in the relationships it represents. The architecture becomes a canvas—but who or what does it actually represent?

More information on the exhibition and events in the program here.

Zuzanna Czebatul (born 1986 in Międzyrzecz, Poland) lives and works in Berlin. As a sculptor, she deals with questions of power and the interplay of economic, political and social interests. She studied at Städelschule Frankfurt am Main and at Hunter College New York. Czebatul has had solo exhibitions at Kunstpalais Erlangen (2021); CAC Synagogue de Delme (2020); Sans titre (2016), Paris (2020); GGM1 Municipal Gallery, Gdańsk (2019) and FUTURA Center for Contemporary Art, Prague (2018), among others.

EXCLUSIVITIES–EXKLUSIVITÄTEN takes place as part of the program series IN:VISIBILITIES 2021/22 curated by Agnieszka Roguski and is funded by the Cultural Foundation of the State of Schleswig-Holstein and the program Neustart Kultur der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (BKM).