between appropriation and interventions

What does it imply to appropriate something? How relevant are not only public spaces but also social and cultural spaces? In which manner do the processes of appropriation occur and how important are perceptions, actions or interpretations in this connection?

The space coming into action is both a relational, socially constructed space and an objective public space. As a result of the society’s economic production and due to its existing structures and infrastructural arrangements, the space offers a possibility for appropriation or forms a barrier for the protagonists. This scope or payload space is characterized by a constant duality i.e. the relation between the individual and the society, which is reflected in this space, changing it by the process of appropriation. Thus something is interfused actively instead of being adopted in a passive manner. „To appropriate“ doesn’t simply mean to utilize, but also to modify and to form. Simultaneously this leads to a transformation of space and the individual. Both are changed by the process of appropriation.

The imposed and the newly created conditions are forming a platform or rather an area of conflict with different interactions. The exhibition space between appropriation and interventions and the invited artists not simply intend to arrange this room with art but also like to examine the overall relation between what is predetermined and what can be shaped.

Karsten Höller at the New Museum, New York 2012

The contrasting works in the exhibition highlight a wide range of artistic positions which, based on an interdisciplinary discourse, may illustrate the familiar in a different way and encourage the viewer to think beyond the existing.

Artists: Isabelle Arthuis (BE/FR), Gaëlle Boucand (DE/FR), Sebastian Denz (DE), Larissa Fassler (CAN), Philipp Fürhofer (DE), Cyprien Gaillard (FR), Christine de la Garenne (DE), Tamara Grcic (DE), Eva Grubinger (A), Mattias Härenstam (SE), Moritz Hirsch (DE), Carsten Höller (DE), Noel Jabbour (PS), Christina Kubisch (DE), Aage Langhelle (NO), Nicolas Moulin (FR), Nina Mücke (DE), Grazia Toderi (IT), Andreas Sell (DE), Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor (RO), Corine Vermeulen (NL/USA)

Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin

9. März bis 21. April 2013