Trevor Paglen: Hide the Real, Show the False / Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán: Rehearsals for Peace

Trevor Paglen: Hide the Real, Show the False
Curators: Lidiya Anastasova, Anna Lena Seiser

Making invisible power structures and technology visible while critically questioning their influence in shaping today’s societies and environments is a central concern in Trevor Paglen’s multidisciplinary artistic practice. Spanning photography, video, sculpture, and installation, his work is often based on intensive investigative research into state surveillance, military operations, and data collection. His groundbreaking work on machine vision uncovers and exemplifies the paradigm shift related to the status of images caused by constant and rapid technological development.

Trevor Paglen’s exhibition with n.b.k. will present several new series exploring mind control, disinformation, and psychological operations (PSYOPS). The exhibition features a new video installation highlighting a testimony by former US Air Force counterintelligence officer Richard Doty, which will be on view for the first time in Europe. In the video, Doty recounts his efforts targeting UFO researchers as part of military disinformation campaigns and describes his relationship to a top-secret extraterrestrial technology program, which, he insists, remains active to this day. The topics of Doty’s ambivalent narration in the video are revisited and expanded upon by further works in the exhibition, as well as through research materials on US military operations (images, documents, memorabilia) and the broader concept of the politics of truth.

Trevor Paglen (b. 1974 in Maryland, US, lives and works in New York and Berlin) has had numerous one-person exhibitions, including at San José Museum of Art, USA (2021); Fondazione Prada, Milan (with Kate Crawford, 2019); Barbican Centre, London (2019); Smithsonian American Art Museum (2019). Paglen’s work has also featured in numerous group exhibitions at venues such as Centre Pompidou, Paris; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago (both 2022); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2014); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2012); Tate Modern, London (2010).

Discourse program
Tuesday, July 25, 2023, 7pm
Panel discussion
With Trevor Paglen, Hari Kunzru (journalist and author, New York), and Mark Pilkington (author, founder and publisher of Strange Attractor Press, London), moderated by Caroline Busta (writer, co-founder of the media channel New Models, Berlin)
In English.

n.b.k. Showroom
Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán: Rehearsals for Peace
Curators: Krisztina Hunya, Diana Marincu

The research-oriented practice of Anca Benera and Arnold Estefán spans a range of media, including installation, video, and performance. Their work addresses historical, social, and geopolitical narratives and their underlying power structures. In recent Benera and Estefán focus on ecological issues such as extractivism and the overexploitation of natural resources as well as the overlaps between environmental concerns and military affairs. Rehearsals for Peace—their first solo exhibition in Germany—looks at the absurdities of warfare and the militarization of nature. In particular, it examines the paradoxical dynamics between military readiness, simulated operations, and the desire for peace.

Member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on the edge of Eastern Europe, such as Romania, occupy an important geostrategic role in the establishment of military training grounds and bases. These sites are often located in nature reserves—places that otherwise stand for seclusion and recreation—and include areas in rural Transylvania, endangering local ecosystems. The video Rehearsals for Peace (2023)—co-produced by the n.b.k. Video-Forum—draws on various folk traditions for warding off evil spirits, such as the Transylvanian custom of Urzelnlaufen. Rehearsals for Peace will be shown for the first time, as part of a site-specific installation and together with Perpetual Harvest (2023), a series of woven straw sculptures that recall an ancient harvest ritual accompanying the seasonal rhythm of wheat cultivation.

Anca Benera (b. 1977 in Constanța, Romania) and Arnold Estefán (b. 1978 in Târgu Secuiesc, Romania) have worked together since 2012 and are based in Bucharest and Vienna. In 2022, they received the Birgit Jürgenssen Award of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Art, Culture, Civil Service and Sport. Their work has been shown at venues such as Museum Tinguely, Basel (2023); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2023); Biennale Matter of Art, Prague (2022); Trafó Galéria, Budapest (solo, 2021); Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich (2021); MUCEM, Marseille (2019).

Discourse program
Thursday, June 29, 2023, 7pm
What to Eat in Times of Perpetual Crisis?
Workshop with Anca Benera, Arnold Estefán, and L. Sasha Gora (head of the international junior research group “Off the Menu: Appetites, Culture, and Environment” at the University of Augsburg). Limited number of participants, registration at nbk.org.
In English.

The exhibition Anca Benera & Arnold Estefán: Rehearsals for Peace is a cooperation with Art Encounters Foundation, Timișoara, funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service, and Sport as well as by the Romanian Cultural Institute Berlin.

Neuer Berliner Kunstverein is supported by the Kriket Foundation.

The Neuer Berliner Kunstverein n.b.k. gGmbH is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for culture and Europe.