21.10.10

WHERE AM I? opening on 12.11. @ Experimenter, Kolkata

Where am I?
Group show with Anja Ciupka, Stefan Panhans, Sebastian Stumpf and Claudia Wieser
curated by Barbara J. Scheuermann
opening 12 November 2010
at Experimenter, Kolkata (India)
Where Am I? brings together four artists from Germany, each of whom negotiates the nuances and contradictions of contemporary practice within increasingly liberal and permissive societies.
Not restricting itself to location in the literal, but also in the figurative, Where am I? explores where one is located in life and in their respective environment. In their artistic practice Anja Ciupka, Stefan Panhans, Sebastian Stumpf & Claudia Wieser investigate their own positions within given parameters using a diverse range of media and formal approaches.
Claudia Wieser changes the existing space of the gallery by covering the gallery wall with black/white-copies of 19th-century-photographs of Belgian interiors, thus creating an imagined new space, which serves as a non-logical, expansion of the “real” space. The installation is accompanied by her drawings that dwell on aspects of form and landscape.
Stefan Panhans’ new video Sorry shows, in one frame people in a modern train cabin, a transit space in motion, overburdened with luggage, squeezing their way through the aisle with no obvious intention. It appears as if all of them are star-look-alikes, trying to play a role different from the one their normal life provides for them. His photographs seem to picture the traces of these attempts to live life defined by a new set of parameters.
In Anja Ciupka’s formally austere text work, Me, she takes personal relationships as indicators of her own position, demonstrating the diversity of roles and functions people naturally take over in life. Petanque balls float around in the gallery space in Butterfly Effect and can be playfully moved by the visitors forming unique groups, pairs and compositions and thereby throw open possibilities of innumerable new spaces and relationships.
Sebastian Stumpf’s interventions explore the relation between his own body in public interior and exterior spaces. His actions which are presented on slides, video or photographs usually evolve from a small sidestep or an unexpected action, like climbing a tree, standing in narrow spaces between urban buildings, or lying on the floor of a museum. By changing his position, the artist not only change his but also our perspective on familiar spaces and surroundings.
Where Am I? provides an insight into the shifting values of today’s society & comments on our position within the dynamic reality of boundaries that we define our lives by.

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