Thomas Arslan / Lia Perjovschi: Experiments and Conclusions

Thomas Arslan
Opening: Friday, June 7, 2024, 7pm
June 8–August 4, 2024

Curator: Marius Babias

Traversing spaces and capturing what is found are the starting points and requirements for the work of filmmaker Thomas Arslan. Through precisely and sensitively composed imagery, Arslan traces individual lives and fragile identities. Many of his narratives explore moments of upheaval and transformation since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 – the focus of this exhibition project at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.). The changing city is so closely intertwined with the cinematic characters that it serves not merely as a backdrop but as a protagonist itself. Featuring video projections, storyboards, archival material, and new works presented for the first time, this exhibition is the first overview worldwide of Arslan’s oeuvre. In conjunction with the exhibition, the director’s complete filmography will be presented in cooperation with Kino Arsenal and accompanied by discussions with film experts and guests.

Film program: A Retrospective of Thomas Arslan’s Filmography
Arsenal presents a retrospective of Thomas Arslan’s filmography, featuring early short films from his days as a student at the DFFB (German Film and Television Academy Berlin), the Berlin trilogy about Kottbusser Tor in Berlin-Kreuzberg, a documentary voyage through Turkey, and his ventures into genre cinema, including gangster films and a western. The program also delves into the significant film aesthetic traditions that have influenced Arslan’s work, with insights provided by introductions and discussions with the filmmaker and numerous guests. The film program is curated by Birgit Kohler, Head of Programming at the Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art.

A project in cooperation with the Arsenal—Institute for Film and Video Art.
Funded by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

n.b.k. Showroom
Lia Perjovschi: Experiments and Conclusions
Opening: Friday, June 7, 2024, 7pm
June 8–August 4, 2024

Curators: Layla Burger-Lichtenstein, Susanne Mierzwiak

For almost four decades, Romanian artist Lia Perjovschi has been creating situations and developing strategies to confront a radically changing world. Having grown up under the regime of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, Perjovschi first developed her multilayered artistic practice under the influence of real existing socialism. Facing political censorship and material scarcities, the artist initially created intimate artistic experiments using her own body as a medium. After the 1989 Romanian revolution, she increasingly devoted her practice to methods of recording, structuring, and archiving information in a post-communist society shaped by the influx of global capitalism. Perjovschi describes her artistic evolution as a “journey from the physical body to the universal body of knowledge.”

Experiments and Conclusions is the first exhibition in Germany dedicated to Perjovschi’s early work, which combines concrete poetry, sculpture, and performance art. Often resulting from open-ended processes, the collected works reveal an understanding of art as a social study exploring interpersonal dynamics and psychological states. Fascinated by motifs of doppelgangers, alter egos, and shadows, Perjovschi humorously and critically stages the female body as a site of resistance and instrument against the inability to act in the face of political and social repression.

Neuer Berliner Kunstverein is supported by the Kriket Foundation.
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein n.b.k. gGmbH is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Community.