Long before post-internet aesthetics and ubiquitous networking began to overhumanize technology, men in gray flannel suits were the standard metaphor for the dehumanizing nature of corporate technocracy. This expression, which swiftly became vernacular, stems from a 1955 novel by Sloan Wilson, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, describing the search for purpose in a pre-digital context amongst those who perceived themselves as just an organic extension of managerial structures. “Post-Information,” Thomas Locher’s current exhibition at Silberkuppe, in Berlin, is all about men in gray flannel suits—or rather, their absence. In “Post-Information,” the display mirrors the subject matter: the exhibition spans two soberly staged rooms, which are metaphorically sealed off by the strategic positioning of an aluminium, shelf-like sculpture, Gestell (1990), obstructing the gallery’s entrance/exit. The series “Politics of Communication” (2000), shown in the second room of the gallery, consists of five large-scale composites of image and text. The pictures are of office furniture ranging from sleek to functional—at times as individual items (office chairs), at times as complete ensembles (workstations, conference rooms, storage systems). Each grouping is accompanied by text captions, which either describe or examine the tenets of communication theory: the nature of information, message, code, medium, and meaning. …

When foraging for food in the wild, orangutans conduct an intriguing ritual known as the “fruit stare.”(1) It unleashes a mimetic contract hinged upon intentionality and co-presence. What makes the tree surrender its fruit? The practiced stare of the orangutan coaxes it into interdependency—and possibly, divulgence—while registering a temporal circuit between hunger and satiation. Earlier this spring, “A Fruit Stare,” Leidy Churchman’s solo exhibition at Silberkuppe, relayed a murky trail of auctioneering, police patrol, and torn legalities. Eliciting an immersive look from the viewer, his work featured fleshy exposures of immanent violence, which mimetically suture culprit and prey. Following up on this solo show, Churchman has curated “New Dawn,” Silberkuppe’s current group exhibition, which includes commissioned works from a good number of its 27 participating artists, filmmakers, designers, as well as essays by legal scholar-activist Dean Spade and sociologist and queer theorist Craig Willse. Michaela Eichwald’s painting AUKTION fuer Leidy (2014) is spread across the gallery façade, somewhat like a protest banner gesturing toward neoliberal society’s zealous adoption of every location as a potential marketplace, while also serving as a dedication to the artist-curator. This work, and the exhibition as a whole, positions painting as a mode of “performative utterance”—as a …