CLAUDIA CHASELING

yesterday is tomorrow (2018),
leaf aluminium, aluminium, egg tempera and oil on wall, floor and 2 oviform canvasses; 500 x 200 x 300 cm

Claudia Chaseling’s practice is characterised as Spatial Painting. At once 2- and 3-dimensional, her work encompasses painting, sculpture, and installation; the works leaping off the gallery walls. Chaseling creates swirls of organic from, upside down landscapes with reversed perspective and bright fluorescent wave structures with political content. The imagery of her Spatial Paintings consists of distorted landscapes, estranged places, mutated creatures and plants whose deformation is caused by radioactive poisoning. Her images, often including text and URLs referencing her source materials, are not predictions of some post-apacalyptic future, but rather the result of her research into historic and ongoing ways in which we continue to poison our planet with radioactive materials. yesterday is tomorrow (2018) is a new site specific work made especially for this exhibition. This spatial painting has a particular view point from which the work is composed. Seen from this single point, optically, the work looks paradoxically flat. Yet stepping out of this particular persecutive, the work explodes off the gallery walls, melting onto the floor, oozing onto the adjacent wall. Contained within the 2 small oviform paintings within the work, are two links to online sources for the artist’s research into depleted uranium. One leads to the documentary by Frieder Wagner about the use of depleted uranium munitions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djv8UyrrC34 >>.

The other link leads to an article about how the west historically and currently uses other countries to test their weapons:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/14/military-weapons-history-the-west-bombs >>.

The imagery in both paintings is of the MOB bomb that was dropped on Afghanistan in 2017, and surrounding the landscape.

CLAUDIA CHASELING – BIO

Claudia Chaseling is a German artist, born in Munich in 1973, currently living and working between Berlin, Germany and Canberra, Australia. She is known for developing the practice of Spatial Painting, comprised of canvases and sculptural paintings with mixed media on objects, walls and floors. The artist has exhibited her works in over fifty solo and group exhibitions, notably in the United States, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, and beyond. Recent exhibitions in 2017 include solo exhibitions at Magic Beans Gallery in Berlin, and the Wollongong Art Gallery, Australia, as well as a group exhibition at Richard Taittinger Gallery, New York. The “Verlag für zeitgenoessische Kunst und Theorie” published her first extensive monograph in 2016.

Claudia Chaseling studied at Academy for Visual Arts in Munich, Germany, and Academy of Visual Arts in Vienna, Austria, before graduating in 1999 from the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin, Germany. She received her Masters degree in Visual Arts from both the University of the Arts Berlin, in 2000, and the School of Art, Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, in 2003. The artist is currently completing her PhD in Visual Arts at the School of Art, Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. Major grants and scholarships received in Australia and Germany include the DAAD; the Samstag Scholarship; the Studio Award of the Karl Hofer Society; the Australia Council for the Arts Grant in 2014; and the 2015/16 artsACT Project Grant. She has taken part in various international visiting artists programs and artists residencies, including Texas A&M University; Yaddo in New York; the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York City; the Australian National University (ANU); amongst others.

KIRA KIM + HYUNGKYU KIM

Kira KIM, A weight of Ideology _ The Letters to North _ Let me know how are you? _ On the yellow Sea (2013), HD Video, 10min

In this video work, a letter describes a brief thought on Korean North-South relations, starting from a trifling thing – naengmyeon noodles. The content of this letter addressed to an unspecific person in North Korea is banal. The narrative in this letter – that one remembered someone in North Korea when eating naengmyeon – ends with the common Korean greetings: “you don’t skip meals”. This letter, however, is not ordinary. Its content carries no serious ideology or thought. In this prologue-like work the artist asks questions such as “what are ideal North- South relations?”, and “with what ideology do we see the world?”, arguing that our discussion on unification with North Korea should be from the heart, to preserve equal, basic human life and to respect human beings, not any logic of political, national, or economic ideologies.

Kira KIM & Hyungkyu KIM X, Hear the Wind_Across the Border (2017), 4K video, 12min

Hear the Wind_Across the Border is a video using an experimental filmmaking technique called ‘360-degree time lapse’. This film portrays four symbolic sites where the Republic of Korea’s political, economic and historical contexts intersect from a contemplative view through the 2016 ‘axis of time’. In particular, the 360-degree camerawork is especially meaningful in that it captures the landscape of ‘time and space’, which human vision alone cannot capture. Such broadened perspective leads to the question of what is the eye of the camera gazing at, in other words, where is the camera located? The artists explore four sites which represent the historical and political symbolization of the Republic of Korea, recording each site using 360-degree video and making montages of them. By doing so, they capture time and space on a single screen while recording the history of the present through a novel technology of vision.

The four sites in the artist’s work reflect the ironic history and reality of the Republic of Korea in a symbolic manner. The first site, the Yongsan redevelopment area in Seoul, is a representative space which symbolizes the Republic of Korea’s shallow capitalism. The second site, the observatory at Yeonmijeong in Ganghwado, embraces the more than 500-years-long history of repeated invasions and divisions in its entirety in one place. The third, Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul, is the place where the passion for new politics was ignited in the Republic of Korea in 2016. Lastly, the DMZ (demilitarised zone between North and South Korea), is one of the places which have a sharp ideological conflict from the viewpoint of the outside world, but regardless of this political sensitivity, the wind in this area flows calmly and silently, revealing irony as if nothing ever happened in the past.

KIRA KIM + HYUNGKYU KIM – BIO

Kira Kim working together with Hyungkyu Kim ’characterise their practice as, “We are interested in the social and cultural position of an individual as well as and in the desire of a group that is contrary to that of an individual. In our work we examine historical events and human activities related to human behaviors and habits, social inequality and prejudice, the contradiction between myth and religion, ideology, and the individual. This examination is founded upon an understanding of the artist’s role in a sociocultural and political context to address and share the human nature of desire and agony with the public through art. As for methods, we would like to integrate visual art into community programming, choreography, music, and other genres. Conceptually, we are looking for the intersection where a concept develops into a form of art. Sometimes, this examination feels like it is fantasy yet it is a reflection of contemporary society shown through a language of humor and visual signs. In our projects, a multitude of cultural symbols are presented. This is to represent the spectacle of contemporary society with its social structure that is dotted with fundamental contradictions. Our spectrum of visual languages include but are not limited to: collecting, elegant painting, collage, site-specific installation, and video that deal with the history of an individual or events.”

Kira KIM was born in 1974 in Korea, and currently lives and works in Seoul. He received his BFA and MA at the Kyoungwon University of the fine Art and sculpture, in Sungnam, South Korea in 1993-2003, and eared an MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, London, in 2007. International exhibitions include: the Animax Biennale (2017); ART:1 Museum Jakarta Indonesia; Artist of the Year, MMCA, Korea (2015); Transfer, Korea-NRW (2011-2012); Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2013), Kunstverein Hagen, Germany (2013); Common good _ Every clime the mountain, Doosan Art Center, Korea (2011); Super-Mega-Factory, Kukje Gallery, Seoul (2009); A Palace of Mirages, King’s Lynn Arts Centre, UK (2009); MOCA Taipei (2014); Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea; SEMA Seoul Museum of Art, Korea; Samsung Leeum Museum, Korea; The Guild, Mumbai, India; Liverpool Biennial, UK (2010); Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, China; Kunstverein Bochum, Germany; Santral Museum, Istanbul, Turkey; The Bienniel of Graphic Arts, Slovenia; Prague Biennale, Karlin Hall, Czech Republic; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Italy; Nanjing Museum, China; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Argentina; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chile; amongst others.

Hyungkyu KIM was born in 1983, in Yeoncheon, which is near the DMZ in South Korea. He majored in communication and media arts, and is currently working as a director of music videos, films, and advertisements in Seoul. The artist mainly focuses on the narratives, relationships and forms viewed through a camera, and is interested in contemplating the views, locations and implications of a camera based on time. Recently, he has begin studying video works that use 360-degree camerawork and flattening with multiple cameras. He was selected as one of the 3 final winners of the 2017 VH Award, participated in the Ars Electronica Residency Program, and won the Grand Prix of VH Award in 2017.

MILOVAN DESTIL MARKOVIĆ

It Really Fills My Mouth / Morning (2013), pigments on canvas, 86 x 250 cm

Sunset! (2016), pigments on canvas, 70 x 70 cm. Sunset on 16.02.2016 in Bundanon, NSW, Australia.

Milovan Destil Marković’s series of Transfigurative Paintings are the result of intensive research and the attempt to develop and expand the idea of the portrait. In his ongoing series of Barcode Paintings, Markovitch uses barcodes to signify written words through colourful, bright stripes on his canvases. Every text can be translated into a barcode that is the product of a systematic process of codification, at the end of which only a rhythmic series of vertical lines remains. This abstraction allows for an international rationalized system of merchandise management, the organisation and distribution of commodities. In Marković’s work, there is a tension between the image as an abstract painting and the barcode as algorithmic script. The content of each image is revealed through the title of the painting. His works contain short text quotations from pornographic literature, politics and banking; representations of the world of power and oppression. Marković’s barcode paintings veil their content behind a normalised form; at once the language of commerce, and a kind of digital calligraphy. They can be understood either as an impish joke on the part of the artist, or as a critique of the opaque structures of markets that mask their global deficiencies and injustices. As a sly comment on the possibility of art as commodity, printed on the side of each painting is a barcode: the normal-sized, black and white version of the content of each barcode painting. In the case of the two works shown in this exhibition, Sunset! is a landscape painting, taking as its subject the date and location of a sunset witnessed by the artist while on an Artist Residency in Bundanon, NSW, Australia. While It Really Fills My Mouth / Morning is a quotation from The Sexual Life of Catherine M., the infamous autobiography of Catherine Millet (the French writer, art critic, curator, and founder and editor of the magazine Art Press).

MILOVAN DESTIL MARKOVIĆ – BIO

Milovan Destil Marković was born in 1957 in Yugoslavia/Serbia. He has lived and worked in Berlin since 1986. Having studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts, Belgrade, where he graduated in 1983. Markovic’s works can be found in numerous public and private collections throughout the world: in between others in the Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto/Japan; Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin/Germany; Museum of the City of Belgrade/Serbia; Istanbul Art Museum Foundation, Istanbul/Turkey; Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade/Serbia; Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf/Germany and Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz/Austria, The Artists’ Museum Lodz/Poland. Markovic has exhibited extensively in Europe, Asia and in the Americas. His work was featured at 42nd Venice Biennial Aperto, 4th Istanbul Biennial, 46th Venice Biennial, 6th Triennial New Delhi, 5th Biennial Cetinje, Sao Paulo Biennial, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart Berlin, Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center New York, Moderna Museet Stockholm, Ludwig Museum for Contemporary Art Budapest, Saarland Museum Saarbrücken, The Artists’ Museum Lodz, National Museum Prague, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, Landesmuseum Graz, Kunstmuseum Duesseldorf, Art Museum Foundation – Military Museum Istanbul, Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, Kunstverein Hamburg, Kunstvoreningen Bergen, Galleri F15 Oslo, Nishido Contemporary Art Tokyo, Fei Contemporary Art Center Shanghai, the 56th October Salon Biennial in Belgrade, and many others.
 
 
 

ABOUT the CURATORS

JUNG ME CHAI

Jung Me Chai is the Founder of DISKURS Berlin, a non-profit art space and residency program which initiates, arranges, and develops an international network of contacts between the contemporary art scenes in Germany and Korea. Jung Me studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Prof. Fritz Schwegler and at the Rietveld Academy audio visual media. From 2011 to 2013 she worked as project manager for the project “Transfer Korea – NRW ” at the NRW Kultursekretariat. She currently works as a freelance curator and as assistant curator at the Kunstmuseum Bochum. She has curated exhibitions such as: No More Daughters And Heroes, Aram Art Gallery, The Goyang Cultural Foundation, Korea // Organ Mix, Total Museum, Korea // Kleines Affektchen (Part Film, Video, Performance), Museum Bochum. She contributed articles to Wolgan Misul (Print), Artnow (Print), amongst other publications.
 

RACHEL RITS-VOLLOCH

Dr. Rachel Rits-Volloch is a graduate of Harvard University with a BA degree in Literature and holds an M.Phil and PhD from the University of Cambridge in Film Studies. She wrote her dissertation on visceral spectatorship in contemporary cinema, focusing on the biological basis of embodiment. In 2016-2017, Rachel Rits-Volloch was Visiting Professor at the Bauhaus University, Weimar, lecturing in the MFA program “Public Art and New Artistic Strategies” and the PhD program in Artistic Research. Rachel Rits-Volloch founded MOMENTUM in 2010 in Sydney, Australia, as a parallel event to the 17th Biennale of Sydney. MOMENTUM moved to Berlin in January 2011 as a non-profit global platform for time-based art, with headquarters at the Kunstquartier Bethanien Art Center. MOMENTUM’s mission is to continuously reassess the growing diversity and relevance of time-based practices, with an aim to support artists and artistic innovation in Berlin and worldwide. MOMENTUM’s program is composed of local and international Exhibitions, Artist and Curator Residencies, Video Art in Public Space Initiatives, a Performance Program and Archive, an Education Program and Archive, and a growing Collection. Since MOMENTUM’s inception in May 2010, Rachel Rits-Volloch has curated or produced over 65 international exhibitions showing works by over 450 artists, in addition to ancillary education programming, artist residencies, and related projects.

Rachel Rits-Volloch

STATION PARADOX is a dialogue between two curators and ten artists from Korea and from Berlin working with painting, video art, animation, installation, and performance. As the title suggests, cultural dialogue can often highlight the paradoxes inherent to questions of identity and shifting perspectives. Juxtaposing artists from Korea with an international array of Berlin-based artists from China, Italy, Serbia, and Germany, this exhibition, by way of its diversity of media and perspectives, takes the viewer on a journey through a complex geography of interpenetrating landscapes: cityscapes, political landscapes, emotional landscapes, fantasyscapes, memoryscapes, cyberscapes. This exhibition takes the premise that our cultural landscape is itself a paradox; like the works shown here, an assemblage of contradictory yet interrelated elements. Though driven by different motivations and media, the stories told by these works are interwoven in a complex social fabric of shared concerns about our world today.

The physical landscapes of South Korea and its border with the North are the subject of Kira Kim and Hyungkyu Kim’s 360-degree video work greeting the viewer upon entering the exhibition. In a second video work, Kira Kim extends his views on the ideological landscape of North-South relations in Korea, imagining a letter to the North, delivered in the only way available to him; as a message in a bottle cast into the sea in a meeting of ideological and physical landscapes. Worries over precarious political relationships with North Korea are a global concern in our current historic moment of rising nuclear tensions. The devastating consequences of nuclear testing are the focus of Claudia Chaseling’s ongoing series of spatial paintings, spilling out of the canvas and exploding off the gallery walls. Inscribed with a steganography of URLs related to her research, the abstract 3-dimentional painting invites us to engage the landscapes of the internet in order to navigate its meanings. The virtual landscape of cyberspace is brought into analogue focus in aaajiao’s ink print of the code 404, denoting the error message which appears on blocked websites in China, and the standard global message for a failure to connect. Whether through censorship or technical fault, one can get lost in this digital landscape. The alphanumeric language of our digital culture is mirrored in Milovan Destil Marcović’s barcode paintings. Also portraying codified language as painting, Marcović goes one step further, translating memoryscape and landscape into the systematic optical language of the barcode; depicting in one work, a quotation from a scandalous autobiography, and in another, the physical coordinates and time of a particular sunset. From transfigurative landscapes, we move to the hyper-real. Jang Jaerok’s exquisitely crafted photorealist painting of a German architectural landmark here speaks to David Krippendorff’s video tribute to the defunct landmark of the Cairo Opera House. Krippendorff’s singular portrait of a physical space across time, is equally an emotional portrait of human heartbreak. Such emotional landscapes are likewise explored in Jihye Park’s mesmerizing video where the simple action of a man sitting in his idling car gives rise to a profusion of possible readings of his drives and desires. Female desire in its most blatant and appropriated forms is the subject of Hye Rim Lee’s ongoing series of 3D digital animations. Lee’s fantasyscapes, modeled as an interface between Eastern and Western popular culture, pose a hyper-feminized challenge to the mostly male perspectives of computer gaming, animamix, and cyberculture. Navigating all these diverse landscapes is Zinu Kim’s performance as an exhibition guide. Re-appropriating a professional role as an artwork in a willful ambiguity between art and life, Kim leads the viewer on a physical journey through the gallery space and the many landscapes of this exhibition.