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LAGOS Berlin @ MOMENTUM AiR
ARTIST RESIDENCY
#2
Mercedes Gertz
19 April – 1 May 2023
OPEN STUDIO
During Gallery Weekend Berlin
27, 28, 30 April 2023 @ 3:00 – 6:00pm
@ MOMENTUM
Kunstquartier Bethanien
Mariannenplatz 2, Berlin
DREAM FOR A DREAM
Participatory Performance by Mercedes Gertz
with Tarot Performance by Paulina Jade Doniz
& Hypnosis Performance by Marcos Lutyens
EVENT PROGRAM:
27 April @ 3:00 – 6:00pm
Dream Exchange with Mercedes Gertz
Come and explore the realm of the subconscious through the language of dreams. This participatory performance engages in the exchange of the symbolic language of dreams through oral tradition and drawings. Recount your dreams, and in exchange you will receive a digital print from the artist.
28 April @ 3:00 – 6:00pm
Tarot Reading by Paulina Jade Doniz
Accessing the unconscious through the visual language of Tarot, this performance explores what the symbology of a card can tell you about your unconscious. Each Tarot Reading forms a symbolic energy exchange. Please bring an item to give Paulina Jade Doniz in exchange for her reading.
30 April @ 3:00 – 6:00pm
Closing Ritual
Hollow Earth Hypnosis Induction by Marcos Lutyens @ 5:00pm
With a special long-distance guest appearance by Marcos Lutyens, we invite you to come and close the circle of energy exchange begun through Mercedes Gertz’s Dream Catching research in various historically laden and haunted locations throughout Berlin, and continued through the Dream Exchange and Tarot Reading performances.
MERCEDES GERTZ – ARTIST BIO:
Mercedes Gertz was born in Mexico City and works from studio residences in Mexico City, Los Angeles, CA and Lausanne, Switzerland. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design in New York, as well as an MA in Fine Arts from the Otis School of Art and Design in Los Angeles, and a PhD in Depth Psychology from the Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Bárbara, California. Mercedes was awarded a grant for young artists by the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (FONCA) in 1988. From 2001 to present she has worked in community practice and offered workshops on art as a language to Latino families in Los Angeles, California. She has also given workshops in Mexico, Los Angeles, and Paris, focused on the study of dreams and fairy tales as a symbolic language that articulates aspects that words cannot express. Her paintings, conceptual installations, and graphics have been exhibited in Mexico, the US, and Europe. As of 2018, she has been the co-founder of Women’s Salon LA, an international collective of female artists that have been working and exhibiting in Los Angeles, that collaborate with up to 76 women from 7 cities in three different continents. Her social practice projects are inspired by her ongoing interest in building creative and collaborative communities that foster and highlight the skilled work of women.
ARTIST RESIDENCY PROJECT:
DREAM FOR A DREAM
For her Artist Residency project at LAGOS Berlin @ MOMENTUM, Mercedes Gertz reprises her ongoing research on the subconscious language of dreams. Her work in Berlin transposes her practice into a new cultural context, using the study of dreams and the translations between symbolic language and oral storytelling as a method through which to address her own German genealogy. Mercedes Gertz’s Artist Residency begins with a research period of Dream Catching in historically laden, haunted locations throughout Berlin. Her Residency Presentation takes the form of a multi-day workshop inviting participants to recount their dreams in exchange for drawings by the artist and tarot readings by Paulina Jade Doniz – a practitioner of Psychogenealogy, Tarot, and Psychoshamanism, whom Mercedes invited to Berlin especially for this project.
Born in Mexico, Paulina Jade Doniz has been in contact with Mexican shamanic traditions. She was trained in metagenealogy, psychogenealogy and psycho-tarot by Alejandro Jodorowsky – renowned Chilean-French surrealist filmmaker. The Tarot, as a way of self-knowledge, engaged her in a psychological, spiritual, bodily and identity search that pushed her to follow different disciplines and personal therapies before starting to teach.
Accompanying Mercedes Gertz throughout her Artist Residency, Claudia Polanco is a visual storyteller who will document and communicate every stage of Mercedes Gertz Residency Project as it unfolds.
ARTIST STATEMENT – MERCEDES GERTZ:
Dream images are of themselves another language, the language of our inner landscape. When we recall our dream images and attempt to capture them in spoken language, these images suffer a transformation. They cross the threshold of the unconscious into the conscious mind, where they seem to lack logic and are difficult to understand. This is perhaps because we are meant to understand them instead through intuition, similar to a poem.
Since 2014, I have been leading a group experiment with a variety of international participants in the pursuit of the language of the unconscious. These events have taken place with migrant women and minority youth in Los Angeles, as well as with participants in Mexico City and Paris. These experiments have led to connections that grow beyond every day conversation, and access inner mythologies of being and ancestry.
While traveling to Japan in 2019, I wanted to continue with this psychological art experiment. Given that I wanted to treat this material with respect and sensitivity, I had the idea of proposing an exchange between myself, and the participant, where they would receive something in return for giving me their dream. I did not speak the local language, so instead I decided to speak through images and gestures, allowing the participant to have one of my own dream images in exchange for theirs.
Berlin Artist Residency 2023 – Dream for a Dream:
An experimental space tending to the unknown.
My intention is to create a space of investigation and exchange where the material from the unconscious is being treasured and acknowledged. In the space we will activate some exercises. One will be A Dream for a Dream: it is the exchange of this symbolic language through oral tradition and drawings. The other will be symbology and tarot, what a card can tell you about your unconscious today. This exercise will be lead by Paulina Doniz. In Berlin 2023, Paulina is one of the guests I intend to invite to activate these dialogues. In the same manner specialists and curious participants can participate in order to enrich and exchange unconscious material. The opportunity to create a container for experimental exchange in Berlin, an artistic meeting space through the collective psyche, which is shared in dreams and with the tarot, is as well a private ritual for me to reconnect with my ancestry since my great grandfather came from German origins.
Disclaimer:
Working with dreams is both exciting and frightening at times. It is important to treat the material with respect and sensitivity. This workshop is an invitation for you to begin a relationship with your dream images through the sharing of a dream, drawing and reflecting on the dream images. This work may be psychologically activating and is no way to be considered a substitute for therapy. If you feel activated or triggered in any way, please consult your physician or find a therapist near you.
About Paulina Jade Doniz:
I was born in Mexico City into a family of artists who from an early age introduced me to the deep culture of Mexico and the indigenous peoples. As fate would have it, I arrived very young to study in Paris. While studying dance and plastic arts I met Alejandro Jodorowsky of whom I first became a disciple for many years and later his personal assistant. At the same time I continued to travel to Mexico regularly where I had fundamental encounters with healers such as Pachita, Carlos Said, Luciano Peres (Lakota leader) María Concepción del Castillo of the Nahua tradition and long stays in indigenous communities.
In a personal search I also followed different types of psychological and body therapies until I came across Barbara Schasseur and her innovative technique of emotional and spiritual healing through the body, after training with her my work took the form it has today combining the different techniques I practice: The importance of Rituals.
I currently give private consultations, courses and workshops in different parts of the world.
TAROT:
Our method of study considers tarot as a visual language that allows us to get in touch with our unconscious through encrypted images. Tarot cards are used not as a means of divination, but as a therapeutic support to lead us to a deeper understanding of ourselves and of life in general. In fact, the cards are a tool to put us in contact with our inner world and through their understanding, repair, heal and empower our personal conflicts. As with all sacred works, understanding the tarot requires a gradual approach, through a harmonious learning process that includes theory: history, numerology, symbolism of colors, arcana, spreads, etc., and practice (readings) and experimentation through consultations, games and exercises directed at oneself. In this way the language of the tarot is becoming clearer and we can feed ourselves with its deep meanings, applying this knowledge in a practical and positive way in our lives.
About Marcos Lutyens:
Lutyens´ artistic practice targets the psychic and emotional well-being of his audiences by skillfully leading participants in hypnotic exercises that affect the deepest levels of their psyche. His works take form in installations, sculptures, drawings, short films, writings and performances. In his explorations of consciousness, Lutyens has collaborated with celebrated neuro-scientists V. Ramachandran and Richard Cytowic, as much as studying under shamans from different cultures. From these investigations and research he has worked with visitors´ unconscious states in museums, galleries and biennales around the world.
Lutyens was invited by the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, NY to be keynote artist with the opening performance at Culture Summit 2019. Lutyens has exhibited in many museums and leading art exhibitions around the world, including the Royal Academy of Arts, Centre Pompidou, National Art Museum of China, Documenta, and the Biennials of Venice, Istanbul, Liverpool, São Paulo. In the time of COVID-19, Lutyens created a series of 12 zoom performances to help the healing process of people in various countries around the world, and is currently working on the national scale COVID-19 artwork Rose River Memorial which has been exhibited at various sites around the US including most recently, the Orange County Museum of Art.
Lutyens has exhibited internationally in numerous museums, galleries and biennials, including the Havana Biennial (2019) and as keynote artist invited by the Guggenheim at CultureSummit Abu Dhabi 2019, the Frye Museum, Seattle (2018), Miró Foundation, Barcelona (2018), Main Museum, Los Angeles (2018), Latvian National Museum of Art (2018), the 33rd Bienial de São Paulo (2018), the Guggenheim Museum, New York (2017); The Armory, New York (2017); Boghossian Foundation, Brussels (2017), Palazzo Fortuny, Venice (2017), La Monnaie de Paris (2017), Palazzo Grassi, Venice, (2017), 57th and 55th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2013 & 2017), Liverpool Biennial, Liverpool (2016); 14th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul (2015); MoMA PS1, Queens (2014); National Art Museum of China, Beijing (2014); dOCUMENTA(13), Kassel (2012); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2010); the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2010 & 2014); the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2010); 7th Venice Biennale of Architecture (2000)
About Claudia Polanco:
Storytelling and audio-visual exploration are the main tools that Claudia Polanco weaves to bring the narrative of her pieces to actualization. She comes from a complementary journalism & communications background and so understands the common & cultural dynamic which she integrates into her work. Claudia is the founder of Hija del Cuervo Productions, a company born out of love for art and community, that brings stories to life and supports the local art community, Claudia’s stories have crossed paths in collaboration with multiple artists around the world sharing audiovisual offerings.
The MOMENTUM AiR / LAGOS Berlin
ARTIST RESIDENCY
is part of the
LAGOS Mexico City / MOMENTUM Berlin
RESIDENCY EXCHANGE