Lodgers (curated by Veit Loers)

The house itself it at the focal point: civilization and domesticated nature. A transformation on numerous levels, from society to the individual, from the inhabitant to the artifact, from animalism to altruism, from artistic strategy to epiphany. Spiritual, indeed even spiritistic references to nature are already drawn outside the house between Ajay Kurian’s pavilion with God‘s Wisdom in the state bed, Thomas Zipp’s evolution central in the tent and Kai Althoff’s luminous angel sculpture in one of the main house’s windows.

Inside, the visitor enters into civilization with furniture and video installations that ambiguously connect quaintness with the unfathomable. This is already the case in the entrance, where Andreas Slominski invites Hellerau furniture with the charm of the 1950s to an unconventional duet. While Ed Atkins introduces his Hisser as a double digital avatar to our world per video and Katja Novitskova anthropomorphizes the animal kingdom, Neïl Beloufa solely presents people in the former swimming pool audiomorphically as commentators in a glistening architectural setting that is virtually animated by moving automobiles. The visitor reaches the basement from here by way of Davide Stucchi’s ‘décoration noir’ to James Richard’s Radio at Night with nightmarish sequences of endangered nature and societal dysfunctionality. A suffering ‘animality’ (Mary Audrey-Ramirez) accompanies the spiral staircase up to the first floor. In an act of individuation, the social network below is transformed on the manor house’s former piano nobile into artist spaces conceived as homages to their authors. Paintings and sculptures by Eric Bainbridge, André Butzer, Günther Förg, Georg Herold and Franz West are apparently—in the literal sense as well—celebrating the swan song of the white cube while Björn Braun and Stefano Cagol have already said goodbye to it. In the so-called jetty above, the villa’s subsequently added low hipped roof, this artistic world starts unraveling. The exhibited works come close to deceptive hallucinations. Reality is interspersed with dark fairy tales and disturbing myths (Michaela Eichwald, Ali Altin, Jochen Lempert) or steer an opposite course full of phantasms (Dirk Bell, Michael E. Smith, Kris Lemsalu). Outsiders open archaic windows with dark energy (Adolf Beutler, Giorgio Dorigo). But things brighten up on top. The twofold structure of reason and paranoia appears under the daylight of the transom window. In an early video, Alicja Kwade not only switches on the lamps of her apartment but also awakens them to life. It is the introit to Eva Kot‘átkovás enormous ‘cage’ in which furniture and devices await roaming children in order to coerce them into their mechanical structure; an uncanny encounter of drip art, reason and delusion.

“Lodgers” is not a group show but a process: the inspection of a house. Instead of rooms with furnishings, we are confronted with works and objects of art that present details from the present day art scene in a different light.

Artists list

KAI ALTHOFF
1966 born in Cologne
lives in Cologne

ALI ALTIN
1976 born in Goch
lives in Düsseldorf

ED ATKINS
1982 born in Oxford
lives in Berlin

ERIC BAINBRIDGE
1955 born in Consett, County Durham
lives in Hartlepool

DIRK BELL
1969 born in Munich
lives in Berlin

NEÏL BELOUFA
1985 born in Paris
lives in Paris and New York

ADOLF BEUTLER
1935 born in Berlin
lives in Berlin

BJÖRN BRAUN
1979 born in Berlin
lives in Berlin

ANDRÉ BUTZER
1973 born in Stuttgart
lives in Rangsdorf near Berlin

STEFANO CAGOL
1969 born in Trient
lives in the province of Trento

GIORGIO DORIGO
1954 born in Venice
lives in Muiach, Province of Belluno

MICHAELA EICHWALD
1967 born in Gummersbach
lives in Berlin

GÜNTHER FÖRG
1952 born in Füssen
2013 died in Freiburg i. Br.

GEORG HEROLD
1947 born in Jena
lives in Cologne

EVA KOT’ÁTKOVÁ
1982 born in Prague
lives in Prague

AJAY KURIAN
1984 born in Boltimore, Maryland
lives in New York

ALICJA KWADE
1979 born in Kattowice
lives in Berlin

JOCHEN LEMPERT
1958 born in Moers
lives in Hamburg

KRIS LEMSALU
1985 born in Tallinn
lives in Tallinn and Vienna

KATJA NOVITSKOVA
1984 born in Tallinn
lives in Amsterdam and Berlin

MARY-AUDREY RAMIREZ
1990 born in Luxembourg City
lives in Berlin

JAMES RICHARDS
1983 born in Cardiff
lives in Berlin and London

ANDREAS SLOMINSKI
1959 born in Meppen
lives in Potsdam

MICHAEL E. SMITH
1977 born in Detroit, Michigan
lives in Providence, Rhode Island

DAVIDE STUCCHI
1988 born in Milan
lives in Milan

FRANZ WEST
1947 born in Vienna
2012 died in Vienna

THOMAS ZIPP
1966 born in Heppenheim
lives in Berlin