Harun Farocki Retrospective / Claire Fontaine: The Crack-Up / Alfredo Jaar: Rosa, Karl, Bertolt, Herbert and the others

Openings at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) on Wednesday, September 13, 6pm:

Harun Farocki Retrospective: Mit anderen Mitteln – By Other Means
Curators: Antje Ehmann and Carles Guerra

Harun Farocki (1944-2014) is one of the most important and internationally influential German filmmakers. His oeuvre comprises more than 100 experimental and documentary films, essay, short and feature films. However, his complete oeuvre goes far beyond that. Farocki left behind extensive works of film and media theory, still to be discovered, and for decades worked as a lecturer. Since the mid-1990s, he expanded his cinematic practice with video installations in fine art spaces. Farocki was an ethnographer of capitalist living environments, which he dissected and analyzed. Vital to his approach and his oeuvre is the examination of the meaning of images, their genesis, and, in particular, the power structures inscribed in them. In order to pay tribute to the significant oeuvre of Harun Farocki, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), in cooperation with Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, the Harun Farocki Institute, Harun Farocki GbR, Savvy Contemporary and Silent Green Kulturquartier, initiated the first comprehensive retrospective of Farocki’s work.

Neuer Berliner Kunstverein is showing the exhibition Harun Farocki: Mit anderen Mitteln – By Other Means, which assembles his film installation works. Simultaneously the first retrospective of Harun Farocki´s complete cinematographic work takes place at the Arsenal Cinema. Dedicated to the question about the influence and permanence of Farocki’s aesthetic and intellectual practice is the event Farocki Now: A Temporary Academy, organized by the Harun Farocki Institute, taking place on several days at Silent Green Kulturquartier, with an opening event at Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Savvy Contemporary develops the group exhibition El Usman Faroqhi Here and a Yonder – On Finding Poise in Disorientation, with Candice Breitz, Ariani Darmawan, Fehras Publishing Practices, Shilpa Gupta, Ho Tzu Nyen, Samson Kambalu, Olaf Nicolai, and Michael Zheng. Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne publishes a multi-volume edition of the writings by Harun Farocki, the first volume being the previously unpublished autobiography. The Harun Farocki Retrospective is accompanied by an extensive lecture program and the educational programs “Großes Kino, Kleines Kino” and “Arsenal Filmatelier.”

Artistic directors of the Harun Farocki Retrospective: Marius Babias and Antje Ehmann
Curators of the Harun Farocki Retrospective: Antonia Alampi, Carles Guerra, Tom Holert, Doreen Mende, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Volker Pantenburg, and Stefanie Schulte Strathaus

The Harun Farocki Retrospective is a project by Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) in cooperation with Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, the Harun Farocki Institute, Harun Farocki GbR, Silent Green Kulturquartier, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Savvy Contemporary and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, as part of the Berlin Art Week, supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe.

Claire Fontaine. The Crack-Up
Curator: Kathrin Becker

Claire Fontaine is a collective artist and writer founded in Paris in 2004, she works with sculpture, neon, installation, painting and video. Claire Fontaine explores the problems and paradoxes of capitalism and the experience of foreignness. Through Claire Fontaine’s notion of the “ready-made artist” she also challenges the concept of authorship and questions the forms of artistic subjectivization.

Most recently Claire Fontaines works were shown at, a. o., Museo Pietro Canonica and Villa Medici, Rome (2016); Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2014); Jewish Museum, New York (2013); CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2013, 2009); Museion, Bolzano (2012; 2006); El Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City (2010); MOCA, Miami (2010); Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2008); Kubus / Lenbachhaus, Munich (2008); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2008); The Kitchen, New York (2008); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2007); Kunsthalle Zurich (2007). She participated in, a. o., Architecture Biennial Venice (2016); CAFAM Biennial, Bejing (2014); Thessaloniki Biennial (2013); Performa, New York (2013); Shanghai Biennial (2012/2013); Manifesta, Genk; Rovereto (2012; 2008); Istanbul Biennial (2011; 2007); Moscow Biennial (2011).

Alfredo Jaar. Rosa, Karl, Bertolt, Herbert and the others
Curator: Michaela Richter

Every year Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) invites contemporary artists to realize an external project on the façade of its building on Chausseestrasse, and thus change the view on the urban space. Working in public space is deeply rooted in the practice of Alfredo Jaar, who since the beginning of his career creates political works that attract attention. His series of graphical diagrams conceived for the n.b.k., entitled Rosa, Karl, Bertolt, Herbert and the others (2017), is an homage to Harun Farocki and his critical view on social conditions, while at the same time it addresses the varied history of Chausseestrasse.

Alfredo Jaar (b. 1956 in Santiago de Chile) lives and works in New York. His works have been shown in numerous exhibitions and major projects worldwide, incl. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2016); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2015); Times Square, New York (2014); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2014); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013). In 2012, three Berlin institutions (Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlinische Galerie, and Alte Nationalgalerie) presented a retrospective of Jaar’s oeuvre. His works have been repeatedly shown at the biennials in Venice (2013; 2009; 2007; 1986) and São Paulo (2010; 1989; 1987). Furthermore, Jaar is a two-time participant of documenta (1987; 2002).