Exhibition from June 26, 2023 to October 6, 2023 // Vernissage on June 25, 2023 from 6 to 9 pm

Works by Dorit Bearach, Agathe Böttcher, Brigitte Fugmann, Reinhard Jacob, Konrad Knebel, Josef Nowinka, Thomas J. Richter, Bernd Schlothauer, Hannelore Teutsch and Heidi Lamira Woitinek. Curated by Christoph Tannert

The exhibition "Hidden Layers", curated by Christoph Tannert, presents 10 isolated progressives from Berlin, five female and five male artists – all of advanced age. Brigitte Fugmann and Josef Nowinka already deceased.

The installation of this exhibition could at least extend the reception period of their works a little. After all, they are all stability factors in often overlooked, if not "hidden layers", which, due to their solidity worth preserving in the respective art segment, are the epitome of undermining common standards of today's "common sense".

They were or are all certain that the deficient, including the lack of openly circulating resources of the intellectual as well as of value orientation, will have a greater significance in art and society in the future than we have been accustomed to in past decades. Inevitably, this will make precision of statement and aesthetic pointing even more important. This spirit of the solitary struggles in "anaesthetised time" (Schlothauer) to formulate entirely free of pathos, sustainable, protecting the fragile, marked by expectation, hardly by fulfilment.

But only those who have or had clear orientations can think and live so subtly. It is not optimistic strategies that regularly consume efficiency gains through increased consumption that are appropriate, but a thorough conversion of man in humility before nature.

These artistic positions are resilient; they are the opposite of wasting sense and sensuality. They show themselves as positions free of zeitgeist gimmicks in rebelling against the recent ideologisation of social life and in insisting on intellectual alertness and steadfastness.

In this respect, this exhibition is about artistic statements that are concentrated on the self in the best sense of the word, far too little shown or even forgotten, which are contrasted by the throwaway society, but not by competition with media developments. On the contrary, this art foreshadows the fact that exploitation interests and changes in taste never allow time to stand still.

They accept the appearances and announcements of the self-appointed chiefs of the propaganda and entertainment industries with a shrug of the shoulders. Their works are committed to beauty, are an expression of work on form, but are anti-hysterical. In them lives the hope that many things can also become quite different before they end catastrophically. Because it is certain that it will.

A catalogue will be published to accompany the exhibition.

The artists of the exhibition

For more information CLICK on the names

all texts: Christoph Tannert, translation: bs

Exhibition from June 26, 2023 to October 6, 2023 // Vernissage on June 25, 2023 from 6 to 9 pm

Sebastian Acker, Claudio Beorchia, Andreea Chirica, Jorn Ebner, Albrecht Fersch, Manaf Halbouni, Pascal Mayet, Benedikt Stoll, Patrick Timm. A project by the artist group msk7 (Mona Babl, Kati Gausmann, Ricarda Mieth, Anja Sonnenburg).

The exhibition RESIDENZPFLICHT I-X brings together works by the artists* who lived and worked successively as artist-in-residence at 10 newly built modular refugee shelters in Berlin in 2019 and 2022.

The invited artists were each housed for 4 weeks in a mobile residential studio that changed location with each residency and was centrally placed at each of the 10 shelters for refugees. The aim of RESIDENZPFLICHT was to temporarily open up the self-contained accommodation for approaches and developments in contemporary art.

The spectrum of artistic projects ranged from temporary sculptural installations, recordings in graphic novel format, a poetic musical piece, research on the topic of nothingness, a participatory offer for filming in front of a green screen to the establishment of a temporary post office with personal letter delivery to Iran.

The exhibition RESIDENZPFLICHT I-X brings together these diverse artistic approaches of the fellows and provides insight into the different experiences during the residencies. Works created during the residency will be on display, as well as artistic works developed after the residency experience. The mobile yellow residential studio in which the artists lived and worked during their residencies will be located in the park at Schloss Biesdorf during the exhibition.

The four-week residencies were described by the fellows as very intensive and were determined by a constant confrontation with themes such as foreignness, being observed and being an observer. In the panel discussion at the exhibition's finissage, the concerns of the programme and the experiences of the participants will be discussed and critically questioned from different perspectives.

In 2018, the project RESIDENZPFLICHT was awarded 2nd prize and the realisation recommendation in the Berlin-wide open art-in-building competition for the Modular Accommodation for Refugees, offered by the State of Berlin, represented by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, commissioned by the Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing (Department V) in coordination with the State Office for Refugee Affairs. RESIDENZPFLICHT was funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe and the Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing.

Exhibition from June 26, 2023 to October 6, 2023 // Vernissage on June 25, 2023 from 6 to 9 pm

The exhibition looks back on five years of art mediation at Schloss Biesdorf. Under the label Labor M, access to contemporary art is offered in various formats to accompany the exhibition. These include artistic-practical projects for schools, but also workshops, guided tours and other events for people of all ages.