Deutsche Gemuetlichkeit • re-construction of time

Deutsche Gemuetlichkeit - Musiker und Kuenstler,
Joachim Seinfeld, 2008, Silvergelatine Print on wallpaper/wood

“It's like the past, present, and future sitting in the same room together.” Todd Haynes

Re-construction of time, curated by Nicole Loeser, reflects the variety of methods of artistic research, by dint of historic documentation of life’s stories, sociological field research, new interpretation and recontextualizing.
Reconstruction stands for the procedure of hocking back or reconstitute to the natural status of the development by using historic fragments. Until the 16th century reconstruction was accomplished just in mind. Ever since an alienated interpretation is perceptible, which doesn’t come from historical reality but from the mental activity of that time.
The artistic positions that are shown circle about the variety of historiography. This shouldn’t be just gathered in its historic dimensions but also from one’s own sight, being discussed on different time levels emotional, fictional or documentary. The artworks show how occurrences whether they are conscious or not are reconstructed and being construed by a present position.

re-construction of time at artMbassy Berlin April 4 – May 3, 2008

Joachim Seinfeld brings the subjects life and dying into focus. He accomplishes his mission in opening the soul of a place plainly visible through art. His often controversial career is rooted in his ability to change using of sources and materials. Seinfeld combines collage techniques with photography, digital reproduction and his artwork is consistent with his approach to content, materials, and the representation of time. For “heaven and hell” he collected old photographs out of archives, but also photographs of the present and then coat them on Travertin-stones, showing just single fragments of a story. Its entirety is formed by
patterns reminding of both a mosaic and a kaleidoscope. Certain parts of the past made visible, and other parts remain obscure. He tells an "open story" that only the spectator himself can bring to a subjective ending by adding the missing parts.





Veronika Witte detects the limits of the body and the phenomenon of identity and creates a reflexive location, which shows identity as a historic complex construct. The video installation ´hybride figures no. 0001 – 1235´ is based on surveys within a project `Institute of socio – esthetic Field Research Berlin´, which have been accomplished at different locations between 2001 and 2005. On the basis of predetermined answer possibilities and the challenge to do own drawings, she questions the relation to the own and the strange body. Among other the tested persons designed their vision of a possible existing form, but with the device that they are composed of only three body parts.
Her work shows how the specific paintings mutate to a collective, durable changing creature. On the left side are the drawings of the male probands, on the right side the ones of the female. In the middle the wishes and requirements at the prospective creature that the respondents demand, appear aleatorically.


The artwork of Karen Lebergott is related to an old, found diary. She is provoked by the old
German handwriting and searches for someone who can decode this book together with
her. It is read by an elderly woman and various matters are brought to light. The text speaks of a woman who travels through the Dolomite Alps. She discovers herself being pregnant and starts to plan a journey into the future for her son. The text is alternately poetic and quotidian (everyday). This disparity points the way to our own lives: lofty ideals and the everydayness of life. The young man reads - in English - the section of the diary that speaks to lofty ideals and the mother’s hopes for the son. Karen Lebergott is inspired by this recovered past and writes her own story. By using graphic and cinematic reconstruction she projects the happening into today´s time. The drawings, through repetition, seek to project our notions of both the repetitiveness of everyday life, and our insistence on striving for ideals.


re-construction of time
Veronika Witte (GER), Joachim Seinfeld (GER), Karen Lebergott (GER)

Curator: Nicole Loeser

Opening Reception: April 3, 2008, 6 pm
Duration of the exhibition: April 4 – May 3, 2008

artMbassy Berlin

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Saturday 11.00 - 17.00

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