Exhibition 2015
The Project "Irony in Media Art - Subversive Interventions" is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and
In its current exhibition entitled IRONY - Subversive Interventions, EMAF showcases outstanding positions that endeavour to explore cultural issues and interfere rebelliously in socio-political processes using irony, satire and humour.
Kunsthalle Osnabrück
Hasemauer 1, Osnabrück
CASTING JESUS
Christian Jankowski / D / 2011
“Vatican’s Next Top Jesus” – this title, in line with the popular TV format, could almost aptly be used to describe Christian Jankowski’s work. Three Vatican representatives are to cast the best Jesus actor from11 young actors.With “Casting Jesus”, this must be the first time an artist has commissioned the Church to construct its image of Jesus. It comes as no surprise, then, that it reproduces the images patterns it has spent centuries forming.
TSE (OUT)
Roee Rosen / ISR / 2010
Can exorcism be achieved using sadomasochism? Israeli filmmaker Roee Rosen exploits a BDSM setting with disturbing humour to exorcise the racist, war-mongering evil spirit of Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Lieberman from the Israeli social collective. Political incorrectness is a constant element of Rosen’s work. He uses obscenities, blasphemy and false identities to question normalcy and clarity using horror.
LOOPHOLE FOR ALL
Paolo Cirio / I / 2014
The Cayman Islands make it easy for tax avoiders and speculators to deposit or conceal their money. Paolo Cirio stole the identity of 200,000 companies registered on the Cayman Islands, and offers them on his website so that everyone can benefit from zerotax. Amongst other things, his installation shows a video that the artist made with international capital movement experts about their social costs.
THIS UNFORTUNATE THING BETWEEN US (TUTBU)
Phil Collins / UK/D / 2011
Adopting the format of a sales channel, TUTBU TV does not offer cheap rings or strange fitness devices, but “life experiences” at a cracking price of € 9.99 (concessions available for students, OAPs and the unemployed). Examples of purchasable experiences include featuring in a porno film or being subjected to a “real” Stasi interrogation. TUTBU TV examines how we experience culture through the camera lens, how the aesthetic requirements of media formats shape their messages or how the desire for intimacy in the public sphere of the media is met.
BIGASSO BABY
annette hollywood / D / 2014
Cruising through Berlin on a bonanza bike, the artist performs her “answer song” to Jay-Z’s Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film. The rapper Jay-Z staged the promo video in a gallery alongside well-known stars from the American art scene in the style of Marina Abramovi?’s MoMA performance. As in a number of her other works, annette hollywood takes upstylistic devices from the hip-hop and sprayer scene in a deliberately amateurish do-it-yourself way, in order to satirise the contemporary art scene and highlight its proximity to the meaningless fuss about status and wealth. At the same time, she broaches the issue of the precarious economic situation of most artists, and the conditions under which they produce art.
JUSTIFIED BELIEFS
Christian Falsnaes / DK / 2014
Five headphones are offered to visitors who receive brief instructions from the artist. When they carry out the instructions under the gaze of other visitors to the exhibition, they leave their comfort zone of pure observation and become part of an artistic work which they, however, can also shape with their individual decisions.
Performances: 22 April: 20:00 – 22:00 h, 23 – 26 April: daily 14:00 – 18:00 h, after the festival Sat and Sun: 15:00 – 17:00 h
Before and after the performances:
RISE
Christian Falsnaes invited some 500 people to the large hall of the Berlin Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts). As a “performance generator”, he appeals to the audience, using the rhetoric of a fitness trainer or management coach, to join him on stage and follow his empowerment instructions. They are to scream or dance ecstatically, kiss other members of the audience on the cheek, and so on. Falsnaes is concerned with the processes of seduction, as well as mechanisms of trust and the willingness to cooperate.
OFERTA ESPECIAL
Ruben Aubrecht / A / 2013-14
Without asking for permission, the artist filmed video art straight from screens at established museums in Mexico City. He configured and packaged these copies à la street vendor offering illegal copies of Hollywood blockbusters, creating an absurd context that unites highly-priced works of art with normal street culture.
VAN GOGH VARIATIONEN
Marcello Mercado / ARG/D / 2014
The variations refer to different strategies that attempt to archive and preserve seven sunflower paintings by Van Gogh and their shades of yellow. From an artistic perspective, the artist develops data harvesting methods using drones and methods for mapping and photographing the relevant places via DNA analysis, Google Earth, 3D printing or colour code processing.
LEAVING A USER’S MANUAL
*IRON A HARE *LEAVE A DESIRE *CLIMB UP HIGH
Meggie Schneider / D / 2015
The hare is a popular figure, famed throughout the world as “Dürer’s Hare”. The hare is a symbol of fertility, wisdom and of being in love. A follower of civilisation pursued by culture, cited in everyday life and art. The screen signifies separation, frontier and protection, and stands for a restricted view. The raised hide offers panoramic views. A “user’s manual” comprising three fragments. So why not set off, get going, leave a wish, thought and desire, iron the hare onto a personal item of clothing of your choice, take the hare with you on your journey and enjoy the panoramic view!
DEAR LORDE
Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby / CAN / 2015
14-year-old Maxine Rose collects bones. In search of her artist’s identity, and unsure about whether to show her work to the public, she turns to her heroes – pop star Lorde, primatologist Jane Goodall, comedian Louis C.K., Bishop Desmond Tutu and biologist Lynn Margulis – with the claim: “I deserve to be heard”. Rose dedicated a picture made of bones to Lorde.
Autoscopy for Dummies
Antonin De Bemels / BE / 2013
The work is an installation at the crossroads of sculpture, mapping and animation film. De Bemels transforms a stone sculpture into a living dummy that desperately tries to find out whether or not he (it?) is human. Although he is missing lots of important body parts such as legs, arms, eyes and a mouth, he ponders whether these really are necessary human attributes. How does an immovable object become a living thing? The installation showcases the existential issue of a non-existent being, and is simultaneously a reflection on our own existential drift.
Forbidden Blood
Istvan Kantor / CA / 2013
The title piece, "Forbidden Blood" was produced in Wuhan city, China, during Istvan Kantor’s performance tour in december, 2014. Chinese authorities denounced and censured Kantor’s planned performance in which he was going to bleed into the Yangtze River. They called Kantor’s proposal an undesired act of subversion. Kantor responded with a clever and even more rebellious way of execution...
The Wall
Egill Saebjörnsson / IS / 2006 - 2015
The installation consists of a wall with objects. A pink jacket and a plastic bag from a German supermarket hang on the wall, and a cardboard box is placed in front of it. A video projector casts an image over the entire wall and the objects, which interact with the action in the video. Things evolve slowly; one scene changes into the next. As the viewer is taken from one place to the other, animations and sounds weave this dreamlike story into a 18-minute-long séance of abstract and figurative scenarios.
Turmlaute.2: Wachturm
georg klein / DE / 2007-2015
The project plays with a fake strategy that directly challenges the audience: calls were made via the press, website and social media, and particularly at the site of a fictitious registration centre, to ensure the privately organised monitoring of EU borders against illegal immigration, using the latest webcam technology from the comfort of one’s own home computer. Originally staged in a former GDR watchtower using videos, sounds and interactive monitoring technology, the project, launched in 2007, is relevant now more than ever.
Exit Art
Felix Thiele / DE / 2014
Do you worry about your future? Are you afraid of criticism? Do you avoid thinking about your finances? Do you dream of a fulfilling occupation? Have you met with uncertainty or frustration from family members? Are you a slave to the constraints of the art market? Are you plagued with self-doubt? Do you feel societal pressure? Is the idea of a life outside the art industry a liberating concept? Stop wishing for the impossible, get your big break - by breaking up! While many art dropouts encounter problems similar to those described above, their motives for wanting to leave the art scene and the exit routes taken are as individual as the artists themselves. Exit Art provides tailored information, analyses and advice: expertly, creatively and free of charge.
From self-exploitation to self-help - Exit Art!
A Media Campus project
In 12 Minuten lernst Du alles über Kunst-Video
Chao-Kang Chung / DE / 2015
"This film features two parallel lines: the first is the cliché in contemporary video art; the second concerns the problems faced by international students, e.g. problems with language, misunderstandings … and so on. Most of the situations I actually experienced myself during my studies in Germany. I attempt to present the two lines in the film in a witty style." Chao-Kang Chung
A Media Campus project
KHM_section
In cooperation with Prof. Mischa Kuball, students of Kunsthochschule für Medien, Köln (KHM) present their artwork in the EMAF Exhibition at Kunsthalle Osnabrück.
Hochschule Osnabrück
Students of "Media & Interaction Design" presented their work at the Klostergewölbe, the basement of the Kunsthalle Osnabrück.
Turm Bürgergehorsam
Hasetorwall, Osnabrück
Eskalation Eisskulptur Epsilon
Wagehe Raufi / DE / 2014
The video installation entitled “Eskalation Eisskulptur Epsilon (ε)” is an allegory of excessiveness. The video, shot from a top view, shows the female performer bathing in 150 litres of ice cream. In analogy to the camera perspective, it is projected onto the floor, between two steep, three-tiered stands.
A Media Campus project
Angel of Incident
Piet Heijden-Hume / NL / 2015
The artist uses his “do-it-yourself” setting to flood a room with light. It is something that he has always wanted to do. In a long, choreographed programme consisting of animation, projectors and curved mirrors, Heijden-Hume offers us a mysterious low-definition opera on abstraction and atmosphere.
A Media Campus project
Assimilight
Students of Hochschule Osnabrück
It knows you are there. Assimilight notices every step, every word, even the quietest of sounds; and when it gets dark, it processes the experiences of the day as light in its dreams.
A Media Campus project
Stadtgalerie + Café
Große Gildewart 14, Osnabrück
Down to Earth
Anna Vasof / AT / 2014
The film installation, consisting of pairs of shoes and a monitor, shows the movement of the shoes being worn in the video, which become “shoe works” thanks to additions such as mousetraps, umbrellas or rear-view mirrors. The additions transform the pairs of shoes into performative objects, making their use more difficult, and changing their function: they create different rhythms and tell stories.
A Media Campus project
WERTAGENTUR
Musik & Kunstschule Osnabrück
Majbritt Wünsch, Yasmin Behrens, Lucie Vyhnálková, Mara Seyfert, Agnes Nguyen, Erika Morsbach
Under the direction of Monika Witte
An office, a somewhat sterile, dull working atmosphere. Two artists in suits encourage the audience to be creative and produce drawings. Another artist is also busy drawing. The works produced are offered to the audience for sale. If nobody is directly interested in buying them, the work is of no value and is destroyed. Students from the Music & Art School have critically explored the world of art and culture, particularly in Osnabrück, and contemplate the significance/value of art and culture in our city.
Performance: Thu–Sun 13:00–14:00 h and 18:00–19:00 h