Hours and Hours of Inactivity / Bani Abidi: An Unforeseen Situation

Hours and Hours of Inactivity
Artists: Bettina Allamoda, Diana Artus, Olga Balema, Fritz Balthaus, Mariechen Danz, Christine Sun Kim, Wolf von Kries, Sandra Schäfer, Roman Schramm, Heidi Sill, Sophie-Therese Trenka-Dalton

Curator: Rhea Dall

With the exhibition Hours and Hours of Inactivity, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein resumes the exhibition series dedicated to the recipients of the Berlin Senate’s Fine Arts Fellowship. Eleven highly resourceful positions from different generations and backgrounds reflect Berlin’s eccentric range of artistic genres.

Hours and Hours of Inactivity places this diversity at the fore, including photography, film, video drawing, sculpture, and installation. A core tenet is to look beyond the artists’ most recent production by way of extended studio visits and on-site discussions, focusing on the “has been” as much as the “now.” In lieu of just filtering new and singular artworks through a central theme or unifying concept fitting for the zeitgeist, the scope is broadened to highlight the breadth of an artistic output—the many hours, the intervals, and the duration of work beyond mere display.

The title is a musical catchphrase sampled from a lyric by participating artist Mariechen Danz and her band UNMAP. Striking a chord with the exhibition strategy, employing the song line Hours and Hours of Inactivity mirrors how the oeuvres included drive the display. This exhibition is about bringing into focus even transitory endeavors and potential tangents, long-term investigations and serial gestures, preceding the latest body of work—viewing artistic practice as not merely product, but as process.

Publication
As part of the n.b.k. book series Berlin, a bilingual publication (German/English) is published by Walther König, Cologne, including an introduction by Klaus Lederer and Marius Babias as well as texts by Ann Cotten, Rhea Dall, and Michaela Richter.

Public program

Thursday, March 30, 7pm
“Questions of Inactivity”
Panel discussion with Hannah Black (artist and writer, Berlin), Caroline Busta (author and editor-in-chief, Texte zur Kunst), and Kerstin Stakemeier (professor for art theory and art education, Akademie der Bildenden Künste Nürnberg), moderated by Rhea Dall (curator, founding director PRAXES Center for Contemporary Art and Unge Kunstneres Samfund, Oslo)
In English

Thursday, April 27, 7pm
“Spielkreis”
Experience-oriented game with Roman Schramm (artist, Berlin)
Max. 25 participants, please register in advance: www.nbk.org/en/diskurs/_spielkreis.html

Sunday, April 30, 8pm
Christian Naujoks
Concert


n.b.k. Showroom
Bani Abidi
An Unforeseen Situation

Curator: Kathrin Becker

Bani Abidi addresses nationalism and state power, as well as the tendencies within civil society to respond to state influence in an affirmative way or with subtle resistance. Her work is based on everyday and historical events, which she often fictionalizes. In doing so, she counters official measures intended to reshape the memory culture with a sense of humor that is based on the conviction that the depiction of history is often characterized by current claims to political power. In her video work An Unforeseen Situation (2015), Abidi relates to a series of state-run competitions, organized by the Ministry of Sport in the Pakistani region of Punjab in 2014. According to reports, Pakistan broke several world records during these mass events. Bani Abidi uses this as an opportunity to tell her own version of such an event: a failed competition for the greatest mass singing of the national anthem. In this way she unmasks the absurdity of such interactions between state-run staging and civilian performance.