Affected Words; Singing Signs

Language defines what is human. Our specific system of symbolic communication makes it possible to name the world, to exchange concepts, ideas and feelings as well as to provide, obscure or encode information. In the digital era, new technological tools have brought about a profound change in the way information, thoughts and emotions modulate communication and affect the way we think and comprehend reality. How has this emotion-oriented form of language created a fabricated reality and downgraded the importance of facts as the foundation of social and political debate in the construction of opinion and truth? Affected Words takes a critical look at how digital technology is being used to reproduce and disseminate power structures and calls for its emancipation, for critical resistance and self-determination on the part of individuals and the community. Curated and presented by María Morata.

The Voice as Performance, Act and Body, Valie Export, 2007, 11 min; Lament, Song for Transitions, Mathilde ter Heijne, 2014, 7 min ; Global Windshield, The Musical, Momu & No Es, 2018, 19 min; We Are the World, as performed by the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions Choirs, Samson Young, 2017, 5 min; Le jour a vaincu la nuit, Jean-Gabriel Périot, 2013, 28 min.

Xcèntric el cinema del CCCB, Barcelona
5 March 2020, 19.30

Time Present; Photography from the Deutsche Bank Collection

It is a journey through time in several respects. Encompassing over 60 works, Time Present at the PalaisPopulaire unfolds a panorama of contemporary photographic art. The exhibition presents a broad spectrum of international photography collected by Deutsche Bank over the course of four decades. Alongside well-known names such as Hiroshi Sugimoto, Gerhard Richter, and Mathilde ter Heijne, new acquisitions for the collection by Gauri Gill and Viviane Sassen will be on view.

PalaisPopulaire
Unter den Linden 5, 10117 Berlin
20.6.2020 – 8.2.2021

Women Make History; Solidarity as a Means of Action

Much has been written on the subject of feminist solidarity, as a formative value that provides the political subject with a secure base from which to promote social struggles in various arenas. The concept of “solidarity,” in its various meanings, has served in recent years as a framework for discussions in the feminist community. The call for solidarity is based upon the demand to dismantle supposedly competition in relations between women. The need for change is based on the understanding that such competition expresses an essentially patriarchal belief, according to which power and control of resources can only be achieved by joining a powerful figure, that is, a man. Fundamental to this belief is the masculine identification.

Renowned feminist thinker Adrienne Rich defines competition between women as “internalizing the values of the colonizer.” Its meaning is that women place themselves beneath men, ignoring the qualities that they may themselves bring to the socio-political situation. The result is the acceptance of competitiveness, or the “polygamous condition,” as natural and unavoidable. The “polygamous condition” weakens women’s solidarity by means of a “divide and conquer” strategy. In the words of feminist activist and theoretician Bell Hooks: “We are taught that women are ‘natural’ enemies, that solidarity will never exist between us because we cannot, should not, and do not bond with one another […] We must unlearn [these lessons] if we are to build a sustained feminist movement. We must learn the true meaning and value of Sisterhood.”

Haifa Museum of Art
26 Shabbetai Levi Street
Haifa, 3304331, Israel
22.12.19 – 20.06.20
Opening: Saturday, 21.12.19, 20:00
Curator: Svetlana Reingold

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How beautiful you are!

In various forms of artistic expression, the exhibition examines the concept of beauty in the art world
and directs its focus towards art and artists in equal measure.
How beautiful you are! does not treat beauty as an evaluative category but instead takes the term as the point of departure for experiments,
commenting upon it from various perspectives: architectural designs by AAS Gonzalez Haase, sportswear by Sandra Dresp and a promotional by Sorgen International. Included in the painterly positions are works by Martin Eder, Norbert Bisky, Jens Heller and Frank Nitsche, among others.
Multiple-media works by Nik Nowak and Jonny Star encounter body-related, performative works by Yvon Chabrovski and Kirstin Burckhardt as well as sculptural works by Vera Kox and Albert Weis.

In accordance with the tradition of the legendary Bar Kosmetiksalon Babette, How beautiful you are! envisions itself as a network exhibition in which a multiplicity of artistic positions gives rise to the characteristic energetic charge. The exhibition is being curated by Maik Schierloh

Kosmetiksalon Babette zu Gast
KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art
Maschinenhaus M0
23. Februar – 8. März 2020

Atopia. Migration, Heritage, and Placelessnes

Works from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection
Curated by Daniela Zyman
FIESP–Centro Cultural in Sao Paulo, Brazil
Opening: February 28, 2020.

Trouble Diaries: Failure is the mother of success

The series of “Trouble Diaries” brings into account another perspective in the way in which artists employ strategies of performance while also appropriating traditional genres, to reveal how the female body becomes a political subject when exposed as a critical weapon. The core concept for these artists, whose work centers on the body, can be traced to Judith Butler who declared that gender is a cultural construct. Your body does not belong to oneself, but is subject to public scrutiny, and your personal diary becomes part of a public agenda

Magic Media – Media Magic

Since the 1970s, Wulf Herzogenrath, Akademie member and long-time director of Kunsthalle Bremen, has made a decisive contribution as an art historian and curator to the establishment of video art in Germany. His archive, which is in part held by the Akademie der Künste and in part privately owned, not only contains highlights from video art, but also reflects the entire range of artistic production and thus the history of video art from its beginnings in the 1960s to the present day. In the Magic Media – Media Magic exhibition, the Akademie der Künste will show artistic and documentary film material, documents, sketches, photographs and artist guest books from the curator’s collection by Vito Acconci, Klaus vom Bruch, John Cage, peter campus, Lutz Dammbeck, Mathilde ter Heijne, Rebecca Horn, Joan Jonas, Bjørn Melhus, Marcel Odenbach, Nam June Paik, Ulrike Rosenbach, Bill Viola and Raphaela Vogel, among others, as well as on Kölner Projekt’74 and documenta 6.

Akademie der Künste
Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin
12 September – 13 October 2019, Tue – Sun, 11 am to 7 pm

LAMENTO I – Mourning and Tears

The history of human civilizations is marked by traumatic experiences of loss, which have produced a great variety of cultural coping forms and strategies. Natural disasters, accidents, wars, epidemics and old age confront us with our inevitable finiteness. In a time in which the superhuman seems feasible, the confrontation with death confronts us with our transience, which overwhelms us with the loss of a human being and leaves us with the painful feeling of grief. The heterogeneity of the ways of coping with loss and the strategies for dealing with it show, on the one hand, that grief seems to be a universal feeling, but is embodied in a variety of ways and finds its individual expression. People suffer from loss experiences and seek successful coping strategies to escape grief.
In the exhibition LAMENTO I – Mourning and Tears, the Museum für Sepulkralkultur dedicates itself to a selection of international, contemporary works of art, the collective and individual experience of mourning experienced and felt as a consequence of a traumatic experience of loss. The artistic works are developed and exhibited in the context and in correspondence with the collection of the Museum für Sepulkralkultur.

Museum für Sepulkralkultur
Weinbergstraße 25-27
34117 Kassel, Germany
16 November 2019 to 15 March 2020
Opening on Friday, 15 November 2019, at 19.30 hrs

WOMEN IN FILM & PHOTOGRAPHY 2019; REMEDY FOR RAGE

In recent years, communities across the world have responded to enduring social, gender, racial and economic inequality through collective actions such as #Metoo, the Occupy movement and Black Lives Matter. At the heart of it, such movements are often fueled by anger and frustration at an ostensible lack of political will or means to effect systemic change.
The fifth edition of Women in Film and Photography seeks to explore how rage against discrimination, repression and injustice can be channeled into a force for awareness, action and change through art.
The women image-makers featured in this programme have created works that speak to local and international concerns, disrupting hegemonic narratives by surfacing stories of marginalised communities and invisible figures of history. Through these works, the programme aims to celebrate, enrich and underline the necessity of diverse voices and representation.

Objectifs Chapel & Lower Galleries
155 Middle Road, Singapore 188977
2 Oct to 17 Nov 2019

BERLIN INTERVIEWS BUCHPRÄSENTATION

The journalists Birgit Rieger and Claudia Wahjudi have held talks with 16 artists who have moved to Berlin from different countries at different times. From the British Fluxus pioneer Ann Noël, who came 40 years ago, to the young performance artist Dachil Sado, who fled Iraq, the sculptor Monica Bonvicini from Venice, who met coal stoves in West Berlin, to the Sound artist Emeka Ogboh from Lagos, who brews a special Berlin beer. In the book, they report on challenges, impositions, coincidences and opportunities in a city that has changed so rapidly in the 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall as no other.

August 15, 2019, 7pm
mit Ann Noël, Mathilde ter Heijne, Birgit Rieger und Claudia Wahjudi
Moderation: Melanie Roumiguière, Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD

daadgalerie, Oranienstraße 161, 10969 Berlin, 19:00

Healing Power

If you don’t feel well, it may seem obvious to consult a doctor. Some people turn to treatments that can be traced back to centuries-old traditions. HEALING POWER introduces a range of ritual specialists and healing practices that are important to many people around the world. The range is very wide: from Winti and ayahuasca to shamans and witches.

Museum Wereldculturen
Museum Volkenkunde
Steenstraat 1, Leiden
12.07.2019 – 05.01.2010
Opening Juli 11, 7pm

Reshaped Reality. 50 Years of Hyperrealistic Sculpture

National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Taiwan
29.06.2019 – 29.09.2019

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The Whole Life: Archives and Reality

The archive is omnipresent and always temporary. It reflects the realities of the past – while archived knowledge at the same time shapes the present. How do archives and their objects translate historical realities into contemporary narratives?
What does this mean for the structure of archives, for their users, technologies, and forms of knowledge production? What can archives do for today’s societies? The Whole Life: Archives and Reality gathers objects, artists, researchers, and practitioners in the space of the Lipsiusbau to address these questions in week-long program of archive viewings, public lectures, evening events and an international congress.

Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau
Georg-Treu-Platz 1
01067 Dresden
20.—25.5.2019
Opening 19.5., 19h

Assembling Past and Future / Woman to Go

With the video work Assembling Past and Future, Mathilde ter Heijne further develops the project Woman to Go. Historical portrait photographs and video recordings from the present are superimposed. This combination makes it possible to transcend place and time, thus bringing together different personal experiences and stories in the here and now. The narrators are united by the desire and will to transform society through non-violent com­mitment. They are actively involved in processes
of social awareness and change and thus stand up against structural discrimination and categorization within society. The work therefore also sees itself as an artistic search for what, to this day, connects all those who are committed to a peaceful, inclusive society.

Grassi Museum
Johannispl. 5-11
04103 Leipzig
17.05 – 11.09.2019
Opening 16.05 19.00

#wemakechange#subjective#personal#blindspot#forgotten#invisible at Hybrid Talks

The condition of transience affects humans and technology to the same degree. What’s new and innovative today can just a short time later be old and irrelevant. Depending on one’s perspective, transience can relate to a shorter or longer period of time. Narratives and manners of viewing the past can also change with time, are thus also subject to transience. Music is heard differently, historical moments are assessed differently and many things are simply forgotten.

The Hybrid Plattform is a project platform of the Berlin University of the Arts and the Technische Universität Berlin in the heart of the Campus Charlottenburg. It serves the cross-disciplinary exchange of art, science and technology.

c/o UdK Berlin
Einsteinufer 43, 10587 Berlin
+49 30 3185 2945
info@hybrid-plattform.org
Hybrid Plattform
Donnerstag, 9. Mai 2019, 18 Uhr

AFFECTED WORDS

Language defines what it means to be human. This very specific system of symbolic communication makes it possible to name the world around us, to exchange ideas and feelings, and to give or hide information. In the digital era, new technological tools affect the way we think and understand reality. Social Media let everyone participate in the narratives of society, however, moods and attitudes are communicated on the same level as information. The endless stream of emotive communication has made it nearly impossible to have a productive debate and often only serves to reinforce beliefs. How has this new emotional language contributed to our age of Post-truth?

The selected works in Affected Words explore how technology and language affect each other. The programme questions how language is used to reproduce control and grant authority, and shows how it could be used as a tool of emancipation and self-determination.
A three-day screening programme about language, technology and post-truth, curated and introduced by Maria Morata

IMPAKT Center for Media Culture
Lange Nieuwstraat 4
Utrecht
21.03.2019 – 23.03.2019
each day at 20:00

Woman to Go at SALA ANGEL DE LA HOZ

Gripped between the fingertips, the postcard is in fact a collective image and an individual memory at the same time and brings with it poignent aspects of ter Heijne’s practice, where collectivity, participation and the artist herself contribute to the understanding and re-writing of history.

Villaflorida
Magallanes, 30
39007 Santander
07.03.2019 – 21.04.2019

To catch a ghost

The occult experiences something of a boom during times of crisis and is thus present in all media at the moment. For what appears inexplicable tends to fascinate and unnerve us in equal measure. The Museum für Neue Kunst is also taking a look at the topic. However, were the ghosts that need to be caught actually created by artists? Or are they figments of our imagination? Reality starts out in our brains. A figurine is transformed into a mystical being through our imagination. What was a broom a minute ago can suddenly turn into a creepy, ghostly object. This show plays on expectations, but also our secret fears and nebulous intuitions. Although we cannot see it, is there nevertheless something there we can only feel? How do we go about proving what we perceive?

Museum für Neue Kunst
Freiburg im Breisgau
27.10.2018 – 24.03.2019

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Time has gone

The 9th edition of LagosPhoto Festival, explores the configurations by which the past, the present and the future interact within the photographic medium. Time will be approached from different angles, highlighting matters of momentum, documentation and preservation, taking into consideration the intimacy of stories as well as the breadth of the concept itself.

LagosPhoto has invited four curators to investigate the diversity that time encompasses: Eva Barois De Caevel, Wunika Mukan, Charlotte Langhorst and Valentine Umansky. Their curatorial discourse unearths the non-linearity of time and the complexity of our experience to memory.

LagosPhoto 2018
Lagos Island, Lagos
27.10.2018 – 15.11.2018

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Connective Videos: Yau Ching – Mathilde ter Heijne

Connective Videos Berlin – Hong Kong is a collaborative platform between Germany and Hong Kong, curated by Olaf Stüber (Videoart at Midnight, Berlin) and Isaac Leung (Videotage, Hong Kong), presented by Goethe-Institut Hongkong. The project encompasses the video art collections of the Videoart at Midnight Edition and the Videotage Media Art Collection. In multiple screenings throughout 2018, Connective Videos aims to learn, compare, and reimagine compelling stories told by various German and Hong Kong artists. It will consider histories across various geographical spaces and offer insights into our existing knowledge of video art production and archival practices.

Screenings on 25.10 and 29.11.2018

Goethe-Institut Hongkong
14/F Hong Kong Arts Centre
2 Harbour Road, Wanchai
Hong Kong