Erik Niedling

ARTISSIMA, Turin

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EXILE is pleased to participate in this year’s edition of ARTISSIMA with a dialogue presentation of works by Vienna-based artist Brishty Alam (*1988) and Erfurt-based artist Erik Niedling (*1973).

The works by Nielding and Alam engage in a dialogue on fragility, transformation, and the forces — both material and immaterial — that shape how we remember, understand, and preserve our histories and knowledge.

The transmutation of the artist’s archive into a molecular image mirrors the changing and evolution of the biological body, where molecules shift and redefine what is preserved and what is lost. Just as memory is ephemeral and subject to fragmentation, the body of work, much like the biological body, undergoes a continual process of transformation. This interplay of molecules — whether in art or science — shapes the delicate balance between what is passed down and what dissolves in the process.

→Brishty Alam

→Erik Niedling

→artissima.it

Alltag und Epoche

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Alltag und Epoche features works by different generations of artists who either lived and worked in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) or who deal with its heritage in their artistic practice. Invited by Oskar Schmidt participating artists are Tina Bara, Wilhelm Klotzek, Erik Niedling, Josefine Reisch, Oskar Schmidt, Sung Tieu, Jasmin Werner, and Doris Ziegler.

 

The catalogue of the 1984 overview exhibition, Alltag und Epoche (Everyday Life and Epoch), which featured fine arts from the first 35 years of the GDR (German Democratic Republic), states that “fine arts and everyday life are two sides of the same thing, two sides in the life of a social human being which cannot be separated.” As a result of “class struggles and social changes,” the socialist era of SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland) rule was inextricably linked to the bureaucratic management of the most mundane aspects of people’s lives in the GDR. What remains relevant today was even more true back then and with an enforced existential pressure: the personal is political.

That this exhibition, bearing the same name and held 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, brings together works from various generations of artists who either lived in the GDR or deal with its legacy—in this case, the dichotomy of the private and the state in their artistic practice—is therefore not surprising, providing an artistic overview of an equal time frame.

The term Anti-Politik  (Anti-politics) was first used in the 1970s by Hungarian writer György Konrád to characterise a retreat into the private sphere as a means of escaping the overtly standardised public space of ideological conformity under socialism. That one was apolitical did not follow from this. In order to avoid the all-pervasive state as much as possible and to fulfil their desire for self-determination within a limited personal framework—which then becomes politically charged—people instead withdrew into private spheres of life.

Although at the time retreating into the private sphere was seen to be an escape from overbearing political control and standardisation, we now live in an almost obsessively politicised age. Today, it is difficult to view withdrawing into one’s private life as an escape from politics in a society where politics permeates every aspect of existence; Specifically in the Eastern states of the former GDR, individuals seem to have moved from anti-politics to hyper-politics.

Making the most ideologically charged links between life in the GDR back then and life in the Federal Republic today, however, goes straight to the trench warfare of the East-West conflicts. Since the early years of reunification, the obsession with GDR art and daily life has been equally delegitimized, ignored, and has festered beneath the surface of popular consciousness. These linkages are highlighted in the exhibition Alltag und Epoche which also exposes the audience to creative interpretations of life in the GDR.

Three jugs, a water glass, and a set of pliers are shown in Doris Ziegler’s (*1949 in Weimar) 1975 painting Stillleben mit Zange. These objects are on one hand mundane and commonplace everyday objects, yet some of them, the jug on the left and the set of pliers are clearly distinct products of the Volkseigene Betrieb (VEB) Schmalkalden. The paintings of Oskar Schmidt (*1977 in Erlabrunn) are stylistically directly related to Ziegler. About forty years later, the two exhibited still-life paintings use  the same specific painting technique for which Doris Ziegler as a member of the the Leipzig School of became known for. Using layers of egg tempera and oil glazes on a hardwood panel, Schmidt constructed a complex design that reflected ORWO black and white films, which were standard goods in the GDR. Although Otto Dix had been painting in this style since the 1920s, other Leipzig School painters, such as Doris Ziegler, took up the technique and further developed it during the 1970s. Petra Flemming (1944-1988) was another member of the Leipzig school. In one of the exhibited works Schmidt directly references Flemming’s 1975 painting Weiße Gefäße. Two partially open containers are positioned next to a cactus, forming another iconographic connection also to Ziegler’s motif. While Doris Ziegler’s work has lately earned recognition after 30 years of marginalisation in the new FDR (Federal Republic of Germany), Flemming and many other artists from the former GDR remain widely under-appreciated – a negative long-term impact of the (East) German – (West) German pictorial debate.

Josefine Reisch (*1987 in Berlin) painted on GDR damask fabric the faded word “Exquisit” – the name of the most expensive GDR clothing shops. Two different variants of a ship are seen below. In 1985, the cruise ship MS Astor was sold from West to East Germany and renamed to MS Arkona with the aim to serve as an exclusive holiday escape for exceptionally politically dependable comrades. Instead of everyday goods, Reisch collects symbols for the most exclusive leisure activities available under socialism.

If personal is political, then political is personal. Even the most mundane private affairs were never genuinely private in the GDR, especially in an artistic context, and one could never be certain that even the most private moments would remain so. The relationship between private and public, between inner withdrawal and exterior expression, were also “two sides of the same thing” and influenced the artistic perspectives in this exhibition. The exhibition’s chosen artists and works engage in a relationship with one another that crosses generations and, if you will, epochs.

Sung Tieu’s (*1987 in Hai Duong) artistic work focuses on the intersection between personal life experiences and state authority. Tieu, daughter of a Vietnamese contract worker who travelled to the GDR to work in a VEB steelworks in Freital, arrived in Germany with her mother in 1992 and was subjected to the state immigration machine’s excessive bureaucracy. The works and ready-mades presented here, like Schmidt’s paintings, have socio-political connotations of their own: car polish from VEB Hydrierwerk Zeitz is presented alongside a three-page work contract for Vietnamese workers. In her artistic practice, Tieu connects the personal history of her family, which is shaped by post-socialist transformation and reunification, with the structural aspects of a state in which issues such as bureaucracy, isolation, racism and surveillance were by no means resolved even after 1990.

Tina Bara’s (*1962 in Kleinmachnow) 1986 photograph from the series Lange Weile looks down onto the artist’s East Berlin kitchen table. On a floral tablecloth, a Mitropa cup with black coffee and an ashtray stand next to a black and white photograph taken by the artist Martin Claus, in which Bara herself can be seen with her eyes closed. Coffee, cigarettes, floral tablecloth, close your eyes, boredom. In a 2002 interview, curator Christoph Tannert compared his experiences as a young man in the GDR with his current situation in the reunified Federal Republic. In the GDR there was a “different time pulse, a different sense of time, a different rhythm of life”. Before 1990 he always found time to read entire art catalogs, whereas today the catalogs pile up unread on his desk. “We had a lot more time.”

Leisure time, everyday life, closing your eyes. Through the artistic processing in the exhibition, the objects of everyday life in the GDR become signifiers for this complicated world of life. 34 years later, at a time when it is still controversial to simply talk about everyday life in the GDR, everyday objects simultaneously become symbols of a renewed political charge. This unites the positions of Schmidt, Tieu, Ziegler and Bara – across generations and beyond the temporal boundaries of the GDR.

In the work Berliner Zwischenlösung by Wilhelm Klotzek (*1980 in Berlin) the different generations merge. He arranges the photographs of his father, the artist Peter Woelck (1948-2010), on fake blue leather. Commissioned works and everyday street scenes and objects – official and unofficial – are mixed and presented unlabeld. Similar to Tina Bara, Woelck documented his social environment in the alternative Prenzlauer Berg during the GDR era, embodiing Anti-Politik: by withdrawing from public life and establishing alternative, decidedly non-political spheres – a kind of “second culture” existed in which people could exercise passive resistance through their private way of life.

Jasmin Werner (*1987 in Troisdorf) negotiates the afterlife of the architectural symbol of the “first,” official GDR culture in her work. During the dismantling of the Palast der Republik, large quantities of construction material were removed for reprocessing, with some of the steel being later reused to build the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. In Werner’s sculptural wall objects, the curved aluminum parts represent the cross section of the Burj Khalifa, while building protection nets are printed with the floor plan of the Palast der Republik. The historical and ideological significance of both buildings converges exclusively in their materiality.

The GDR saw itself at the beginning of the socialist era, after which the communist era would have commenced, bringing the the chronology of epochs to its final, desired state. In Erik Niedling’s (*1973 in Erfurt) work “Folded flag (GDR)”, the GDR flag, which was once omnipresent in the standardized public space, is neatly folded with its socialist symbols of hammer and sickle no longer visible. However, the exhibition Alltag und Epoche demonstrates that the debate of topics related to the political notion of the private life in the GDR is far from complete, and that it cannot be simply discarded in the linen closet like a no longer needed flag. After 30 years of marginalisation, the process of reconciling with everyday life and art in the GDR is only at its beginning.

Marlene Militz

→Read German original (PDF, 57kb)

10×1000

Posted on by Regina Regina

EXILE and the participating artist have taken the ongoing global crises as a starting point to offer selected artworks at a reduced price to directly support various charitable causes. The ten selected artworks were offered at a fixed price of 1.000 EUR to be donated directly by the buyer to the cause selected by the respective artist donating the work.

We would like to thank everyone for taking initiative, acquiring an artwork and donating to the causes selected by each artist. Thank you!

The offered artworks of 10×1000 were:

Kinga Kiełczyńska: Hidden interface (beaver and Andrii), 2022. Garden waste of hand-carved hazelnut shoots, beaver-worked driftwood, reclaimed cables, 90 x 60 x 60 cm
Exhibited as part of the artist’s →solo exhibition at EXILE in 2022
1.000 EUR to be donated directly to →Polish Humanitarian Action

Erik Niedling: Future 01/19/17, 2017. Tin, Lead, 8 x 53 x 18.5 cm
Exhibited as part of the artist’s →solo exhibition at EXILE in 2017
1.000 EUR to be donated directly to →Doctors without Borders

Nschotschi Haslinger: Untitled, 2019. Color pencil on paper, 30 x 42 cm
Features on the cover of →Index Nr 86, Jan 2019
1.000 EUR to be donated directly to →Doctors without Borders

Kerstin von Gabain: Pear I & II, 2022. Wax, 13 x 6 x 6 cm each
500 EUR each to be donated directly to →Caritas Ukraine Funds

Gwenn Thomas: Standard Candles, 2017. Wood and black acrylic paint, 52 x 46 x 26,5 cm
Exhibited as part of the artist’s →solo exhibition at EXILE in 2017
1.000 EUR were donated directly to →Fight for Right Ukraine

Martin Kohout: Coll., Mongolia-Cambodia, 2016. Wood, stamps, plastic grid, 52 x 34 x 7 cm
1.000 EUR were donated directly to →Fight for Right Ukraine

Sine Hansen: Bohrer mit Birne, 1970. Screen print, 61 x 42 cm.
Exhibited as part of the artist’s →solo exhibition at EXILE in 2021.
1.000 EUR were donated directly to →Medeor Fund for Ukrainian hospitals

Pauł Sochacki: Waiting for the rainbow, 2022. Oil on canvas, 27 x 27 cm
1.000 EUR were donated directly to →United Nations Refugee Agency

Nazim Ünal Yilmaz: Tare, 2010. Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm
Exhibited as part of the artist’s →solo exhibition at EXILE in 2020
1.000 EUR were donated directly to →Palestine Children’s Relief Fund

Tess Jaray: Untitled (Navy Blue), 2010. Unique inkjet on archival paper, 20.2 x 24.2 cm
Exhibited as part of the artist’s →solo exhibition at EXILE in 2019
1.000 EUR were donated directly to →Red Cross Ukraine Funds

Walder

Posted on by Regina Regina

In Romanticism, the forest serves as a timeless refuge from the modern world. The group exhibition Walder assumes that the forest is no longer an antipode, but the dominant reality. Ingo Niermann and Erik Niedling’s video of the same title shows a lonely middle-aged man strolling through the Thuringian woods, imagining himself as the law, the power and the people. This work is complemented by paintings, drawings, photographs and artefacts, also by Fabian Reetz, Genesis P. Orridge, Kazuko Miyamoto, Kinga Kiełczyńska and Thomas Bayrle, in which the word for world is again forest.

→EXILE Erfurt, Kartausengarten 6, 99084 Erfurt, Germany

Das stille Leben des Sammlers Kempinski

Posted on by Regina Regina

You are cordially invited to the inaugural Private Viewing of the imaginary collection of Mr Kempinski. This exhibition brings together works by over 60 artists, now presented for the very first time for collective viewing.

New York-based curator Mr Miller and Berlin-based Mr Siekmeier were asked by Mr. Kempinski to create a collage of artworks that reflects upon the relationship between art and collecting.

The Kempinski collection is by definition fluctuant and can move freely from one context to the next.

Exhibition events:

Sat, May 31, 7pm
Kinga Kielczynska: Power point lecture introducing
ARP- Art Related Progress. A business proposal for an art residency program to be set up in Colombia on a self-sustainable property

Sat, June 7, 7pm
Film screening with curator Billy Miller

Fri, June 13, 7pm
Martin Kohout: One-year anniversary of Kohout’s Gotthard Tunnel Run in Switzerland during LISTE Basel in 2013 and artist booklaunch

Participating Artists: Nadja Abt, Aggtelek, Joseph Akel, Peggy Ahwesh, Anonymous, Francisco Berna, Douglas Boatwright, Matt Borruso, Matthew Burcaw, Elijah Burgher, Luke Butler, Anders Clausen, TM Davy, Mark Dilks, Discoteca Flaming Star, Paul Gabrielli, Robin Graubard, Markus Guschelbauer, Frank Hauschildt &Valentin Hertweck, Adrian Hermanides, Dan Herschlein, Benjamin Alexander Huseby, Monika Paulina Jagoda, Stephan Jung, Vytautas Jurevicius, Renata Kaminska, Saman Kamyab, Kinga Kiełczyńska, Lisa Kirk, Martin Kohout, Marcus Knupp, Ulrich Lamsfuss, Cary Leibowitz, Hanne Lippard, Mahony, Katharina Marszewski, Darrin Martin, Rachel Mason, Howard McCalebb, Kazuko Miyamoto, Bob Mizer, Erik Niedling, Hugh O’Rourke, Joel Otterson, Rob Pruitt, Johannes Paul Raether, Annika Rixen, Matteusz Sadowski, Salvor, Dean Sameshima, Pietro Sanguineti, Fette Sans, Wilken Schade, Jason Seder, Barbara Sullivan, Gwenn Thomas, Goran Tomcic , Rein Vollenga, Jan Wandrag, Fresh White, Tara White, Norbert Witzgall, Carrie Yamaoka

 

LISTE, Basel

Posted on by Regina Regina

EXILE’S group presentation at LISTE art fair re-envisions the exhibition Homo Decorans from 1985.

Homo Decorans – det dekorerende menneske was an exhibition at The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark in 1985 featuring works by architects, designers, folk and craft artists as well as fine artists. Among the participants were Mario Botta, George Sowden, Aldo Rossi, Michele de Lucchi, Keith Haring, and Nathalie Du Pasquier. The exhibition’s title and concept referenced the book Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga from 1938. In line with Homo Ludens, the exhibition Homo Decorans focused on the post-modern use of material, aesthetic and referential sampling with a certain playful expression at its core.

The grandiose, more than eight meters long painting Viva Pertini by Nathalie Du Pasquier from this particular exhibition forms the visual back-drop and historical link. Viva Pertini, which is one of du Pasquier’s earliest and certainly largest paintings, has not been seen in public since exhibited in a room alongside a mural by Keith Haring as part of Homo Decorans. Now, reconfigured through the works of a younger generation of artists, all works collectively emerge as a re-sampled collage of art works that reflects upon the painting’s expressive contend as well as the cross-disciplinary approach of Homo Decorans: at the core of all works on display stands a playful and personal creative expression without discursive limitation and boundary.

Nathalie Du Pasquier, born 1957 in Bordeaux, lives and works in Milan. She was a founding member of Memphis Design in 1981. Until 1986 du Pasquier designed numerous textiles, carpets, plastic laminates as well as furniture. In 1987 painting became her main focus. Recently, a monograph entitled Don’t take these drawings seriously 1981-1987 was published by Powerhouse. Concurrently to LISTE du Pasquier holds her first solo exhibition at the gallery entitled The Big Game.

Aggtelek is a collaboration of Gema Perales, born 1982, and Xandro Vallès, born 1978. The artists live and work in Barcelona. In their videos, sculptures, paintings, drawings and performances the artists investigate theoretical and practical developments of art production and its repercussions on creative practice. Issues of Globalism, Commodification of meaning, mass production paired with the current economic crisis (especially in Spain) and a current trend of hyper-individuality and artist fetish are transcribed to at times tense, at times surreal but always quite ironically dark projects. Aggtelek currently holds two solo exhibitions in Spain: at the Capella de Sant Roc, Museu de Valls in Valls and at the Museo de la Universidad de Alicante in Alicante.

Erik Niedling, born 1973, would like to be buried in Pyramid Mountain, the largest tomb of all time: A pyramid at least 200 meters high carved from a natural mountain that will be reburied under the excavated material after his internment, restoring it to its original mountain shape. To make this goal a reality, he lived one year as though it were his last. He has recently shown works for the burial chamber in an institutional solo exhibition at Haus am Luetzowplatz in Berlin. The exhibition entitled Eine Pyramide fur mich brought together the current state of production for the pyramid and included the tip of the pyramid, paintings and panels, leather curtains as well as documenting material.

Katharina Marszewski, born 1980 in Warsaw, lives and works in Berlin. Her artistic practice begins with screen-print, collage, photography and objects and extends to temporal assemblage, immersive collaboration as well as scripted performance. She has recently participated in the exhibition Duties and Pleasures with Marc Camille Chaimowicz and Błażej Pindor at The National Museum in Warsaw and the Muzeum Wnetrz, Otwock Wielki, Poland, 2014.

Martin Kohout, born 1984 in Prague, lives and works in Berlin. in 2013, his participation at LISTE included a run through the Gotthard tunnel. His work is often based in video but also includes objects, photographs as well as sound performance. He performs under the name TOLE and opened the publishing house TLTRpress. In 2014, Kohout was nominated for the Jindřich Chalupecký Award and exhibited at The Veletržní Palace of the National Gallery, Prague.

Patrick Panetta, born 1977, lives and works in Berlin. His practice critically dissects and reflects upon modes of representation and contexualization of contemporary art. Recently, Panetta offered his solo booth at abc artfair for sale via an advert he placed in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The booth was consequentially sold to another artist which turned the usual cycle of creation and commodification of an artwork on its head. Panetta recently had his first solo exhibition at the gallery entitled House of Cards in which he documented the on-going shift of perception and consumption of artworks: Videos of artworks viewed online became the artworks themselves, empty shelves point to the loss of actual engagement with an artwork’s physical presence.

Booth: 0/8/3 (ground floor)

Burial of the White Man

Posted on by Regina Regina
Every year since May 8, 2017, Erik Niedling and like-minded individuals ascend Kleiner Gleichberg near Römhild, the mountain Niedling has chosen for the realization of Pyramid Mountain, to celebrate the symbolic Burial of the White Man in anticipation of future events.
Erik Niedling and Ingo Niermann cordially invite people of all genders and colors to meet on the summit of the future Pyramid Mountain at 12 pm on May 8, 2020. We will discuss conditions for overcoming the dominance of white men and jointly rebuild a stone pyramid on the summit plateau which usually gets dismantled over the course of the following year. 
No one enters the realm of the dead empty-handed; proper provisions are a must. Bearing this in mind, artist Jeronim Horvat has invited the following artists to pack their rucksacks that will be opened on Kleiner Gleichberg on May 8: Vela Arbutina, Marie Matusz & Cassidy Toner, Maya Hottarek, Anna Walther, Paul Otis Wiesner, Johanna Blank, Bob Schatzi Hausmann, Tobi Keck, Nellie Lindquist, Anica Kehr, Julius Pristauz, Ernestyna Orlowska, KOTZ (Don Elektro, Marian Luft and Salvador Marino), Lotte Meret Effinger, Ronny Szillo, Lucie Freynhagen, Matyáš Maláč & Julius Reichel, Jiajia Zhang, Cyril Hübscher
Further reading:
FEATURES

Dead End Galaxies

Posted on by Regina Regina

For the lack of better knowledge galaxies are infinite, endless spaces, which will always offer an ever so imaginary escapist niche, somewhere. Such magical spheres where Siri or Alexa are just poetically named starlets, where a ‘Hello Alexa’ remains unanswered, where there is silence beyond entrenching reason.

The longing to escape to such a non-defined, free space is as ancient as contemporary relevant. In times of seemingly endless reason, it remains the ultimate desire, yet ultimately results in a dead end. No form of contemporary escapism can any longer provide an idealized, naïve notion of a lost paradise. Escapism is at its end as it is en vouge. Parallelism or Internalism can provide relief yet, in the very end, it is the here and now.

Anyone who has thought about parallel universes will know that it is hard to figure out which one of them is ‘real’. The denominators of what we call ‘reality’ have become blurred, a new flexibility of ‘truth’ rules even over the galaxy we currently reside in. The ‘fake-news’ of the day is poking holes in the sensitive skin of our very own filter-bubbles and within the blink of an eye your day can vault you into the ‘upside-down’.

Maybe it is time to travel. Where could we go from here?

‘Introspection’ is the new long distance journey, as we slide through the endless feed of information and images that busy algorithms have chosen for our fingers to scroll through: A gentle touch, a ‘reaction’ of sorts – like staring into the abyss of binary code.

The afterimage of a world seen from outer space, the alienation of the self and ‘the other’ in a dense habitat we share with the digital creatures of our own making. Looking at the remainders of the world we produce and consume, light years filled with the human trace of artificial goods, it is time to enter the void.

The inscription of a seminal painting by the French artist Paul Gauguin reads “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” (P. Gauguin / 1897), a question still unaccounted for as of today. A promise has been made, and for the longest time it remains unfulfilled.

Dead End Galaxies is a single exhibition running parallel across two different cities connected via a time tunnel.

Opening: Sat, Mar 10
Dead End Galaxies at EXILE, Berlin
Artists: Angelika Loderer, Bitsy Knox, Christophe de Rohan Chabot, Core.Pan, Hanny Oldendorf, Nicholas Riis, Phillip Mueller, Real Madrid, and Studio Furthermore.

Opening: Sat, Mar 17
Dead End Galaxies at POLANSKY, Prague
Artists: Bitsy Knox, Christophe de Rohan Chabot, Erik Niedling, Jura Shust, Pakui Hardware, Patrick Panetta, Pauł Sochacki, Sarah Pichlkostner, and Sarah Schönfeld.

Dead End Galaxies is curated by Marlies Wirth, Curator for Digital Culture and Design at MAK Vienna, and Christian Siekmeier, EXILE.

Features
→Art Viewer

 

 

Dokumentationszentrum Thüringen

Posted on by Regina Regina

The Documentation Center Thuringia (DZT) is dedicated to researching radical political movements in Thuringia that glorify oppression and violence. Founded by artist Erik Niedling and writer Ingo Niermann, the DZT examines both what was and what is, as well as what could be. Unlike documentation centers dedicated to Nazi history, the DZT does not confine itself to surveying particularly catastrophic past events, but understands the pursuit of oppression and violence, as manifested in National Socialism and its underlying racism, sexism, ableism, and totalitarianism, as something always undergoing transformation. In order to resist it successfully, the DZT strives to apprehend not only its existing forms but also its potential future mutations.

In the DZT’s first exhibition – Dokumentationszentrum Thüringen – Erik Niedling explores the question of how Thuringia became a rallying point for right-wing radicals and neo-Nazis after the fall of the Wall, and chronicles how, in order to violently oppose them and the annexation of the socialist Eastern Germany by the capitalist Western Germany, he and his friends founded the “Anarchist Faction” as teenagers. Niedling gathers archival material and historical artifacts and presents his personal story as a fragment in world events.

At the center of the exhibition is the film In the Heart of Germany, in which the artist Amy Patton reads a script recounting the history of divided Germany, the period of reunification, and the activities of the Anarchist Faction over a montage of tranquil images of Thuringia. A present-day encounter between Niedling and an old comrade-in-arms, who today belongs to the QAnon movement, gives a glimpse into an ominous future.

Two display cases contain Anarchist Faction documents, press photographs, and artifacts directly related to the film’s narrative. On the walls are four photographic stills taken during the making of the film. Furthermore, Niedling shows two Flag Paintings, executed in the state colors, red and white, which are omnipresent in Thuringia, on GDR-era canvases found during the artist’s research, and a painting from the Burial of the White Man series which shows a black triangle on a white ground.

Also on view are two artifacts that came into his possession during excavations on historical grounds. The first is Information Board, a decommissioned noticeboard from the radical right-wing Thuringian party Der III. Weg (founded 2013), the second is Target, a fragment of a steel girder riddled with bullet holes that Niedling excavated on a former firing range in Erfurt’s Steigerwald, which was used by neo-Nazis as a training ground after the fall of the Wall.

→View/download brochure (PDF, 100kb)

→Erik Niedling artist link

Features
→OFLUXO
→Art Viewer
→Contemporary Art Daily

Seizure

Posted on by Regina Regina

On the occasion of Seizure, Erik Niedling announces the following:

“I would like to build the largest tomb of all time and be buried there after my death, along with my artwork. Conceived by writer Ingo Niermann as part of our documentation The Future of Art (2010), Pyramid Mountain is a pyramid excavated from a mountain, standing no less than 200 meters high. Once I am buried, the carved-away material will once again be poured over the pyramid, effectively restoring the mountain to its original form.

For the past seven years, I have been trying to create the necessary conditions to stage my own disappearance in a monumental way. I lived for one year as though it were my last, tried my hand as a political adviser and initiator of a new fitness movement to obtain the necessary financial resources, and created a new currency, the Pyramid Dollar.

In 2012, I declared the Kleiner Gleichberg in my home state of Thuringia the future site of Pyramid Mountain, opening what amounted to a broad front of resistance. The multi-year international search for an alternative mountain proved unsuccessful, and I once again turned my attention to Kleiner Gleichberg: a highly visible landmark and natural bulwark used by everyone from the Celts to the East German National People’s Army.

At 12 pm on May 8, 2017, I seized the Kleiner Gleichberg in an act of civil disobedience until final completion of Pyramid Mountain. As a sign of my claim, I will fix a flag on the summit, erect a pile of rocks in the shape of a pyramid and install a permanent exhibition with future grave items there.

In a world where Donald Trump can become President of the United States, anything is possible: I am taking advantage of this propitious, revolutionary moment to set new rules. I have understood that only they who are ready for confrontation achieve their goal.”

EXILE OFF-SITE EXHIBITION
→Kleiner Gleichberg
50° 24′ 44″ N, 10° 35′ 34″ O

Features
→Daily Lazy

Ausstellung 61

Posted on by Regina Regina

↑At
Aggtelek
↑Night
Christophe De Rohan Chabot
↑Creatures
Erik Niedling
↑Come
Gwenn Thomas
↑Up
Jordan Nassar
↑From
Kazuko Miyamoto
↑The
Martin Kohout
↑Bottom
Nathalie Du Pasquier
↑Of
Patrick Fabian Panetta
↑Our
TM Davy
↑Oceans

→Click here to watch exhibition trailer by Patrick Panetta

Features
→Art Viewer

Conquest

Posted on by Regina Regina

For his second solo exhibition at the gallery, entitled Conquest, Erik Niedling joins together two vernacular practices: Molybdomancy, which is a fortune telling practice dating back to ancient Greece, and the collecting of tin soldiers.

Molybdomancy is still practiced today in German-speaking countries and commonly known as Bleigießen (lead-pouring) respectively Zinngießen (tin-leading). It is a popular pastime, especially during New Year’s Eve celebrations to predict one’s upcoming year. Small lead or tin figurines are melted over a candle and, once liquified, poured into cold water. The transformed and resolidified shape is then interpreted for clues to an uncertain future.

Some of the earliest examples of miniature tin soldiers were used to visualize medieval battlefield strategies. The first mass-produced tin soldiers were made in Germany during the 18th century by the Hilbert brothers in Nuremberg and they have remained a popular collecting hobby ever since.

For his new sculpture series Futures (2017), Niedling replicates the process of Molybdomancy, but enlarges its scale over a thousand-fold. Instead of a single figurine, Niedling liquifies whole armies of tin soldiers, pours them into water and receives a quite dramatic object. The process recalls the artist’s Pyramid Paintings (2014/15), where Niedling used soot from his own torched artworks as a coloring agent for newly generated artworks.

The exhibition’s invite and first work seen upon entering the gallery, Conquest (2017), shows a selenium-toned, silver-gelatin photograph of a knight in shining armor riding a horse. This vintage photograph, singed “Wolfgang Krätzer Nov 1960” on the back, was bought by Niedling at a flea market and presents the access point to the exhibition. The provenance of the photograph is unknown, though it was most likely photographed in a museum in East Germany. The knight depicted in the photograph becomes a kind of metaphorical commander sending the thousands of small tin soldier figurines into battle.

As Niedling liquifies not a single tin figurine but whole armies, the resulting shape is not so much a prediction of an individual future but a collective one. With the individual tin soldier now subsumed under an almost obedient macro-political dynamic, Niedling appeals to the all too relevant fragility of an individual’s freedom and expression. Niedling’s version of Molybdomancy resembles a process of purgatory, as a hellish dilution of the individual, in a greater solidified mass.

Features
→Art Viewer

The Chamber

Posted on by Regina Regina

Erik Niedling would like to be buried in Pyramid Mountain, the largest tomb of all time, conceived by writer Ingo Niermann. Therefore a structure at least 200 meters high is chiseled out of a mountain and re-covered with the excavated material after Niedling’s internment, thus restoring it to its original form.

To make this goal a reality, Niedling lived one year as though it were his last. During this time he designed his own burial chamber. Refraining from his previous artistic work as a photographer and archivist of material built, planted, and photographed by others, he wholly dedicated himself to his own life and its relics.

Particular attention was paid to a night in the late 1990s, in which the physical and psychological excesses he experienced with a group of friends in his hometown of Erfurt culminated in Niedling’s decision to become an artist.

Like Niedling’s previous works, Chamber deals with the notion of vanishing—this time, his own disappearance and that of his work. In doing so, Niedling experiences himself not as a victim of evolution, but rather as an “owner” in the Stirnerian sense of the word, one who playfully rehearses his own demise and retains control over his work even after his death.

For the exhibition at EXILE the Chamber cycle is displayed like in a walk-in-closet to stress the transitory character of the work till it is finally becoming part of Pyramid Mountain.

Text by Ingo Niermann

 

Further reading:
Ingo Niermann with Erik Niedling, The Future of Art: A Manual, Sternberg Press, 2011.
Erik Niedling with Ingo Niermann, The Future of Art: A Diary, Sternberg Press, 2012.

 

List of works to be transferred to Niedling’s burial chamber after his death:

Documents
Various artifacts, documents and photos of the artist’s life. Various mediums, dimensions, 1973-2012.
*Documentation of the artist’s life and work to be displayed in 19 glass display cases chronological from birth through to the artist’s last year. Here, displayed enclosed in its crate (Front space) and as black and white print inventory (Back space).

Tribunal of Reconciliation
Active speaker with built-in MP3 player, 3:46 min, sound loop, punching bag, 103.3 x 50 x 300 cm, 2012.
*A speaker aimed at a punching bag playing the collective brain waves (EEG) converted to sound, recorded during a reunion of all those who were friends on the night of December 24, 1998, and participated in the transpiring events. The speaker and punching bag were located at the place the events took place.

Cycle
C-print in a wooden frame, 167 x 125.5 cm, 2012.
*Reproduction of a print from a photograph of a photograph lifted from a newspaper. The picture shows a Harley Davidson motorcycle that Niedling won as a prize at a carnival in 1986. The print has accompanied him ever since and continues to fade more and more with each passing day.

ST37
Steel, goat’s milk, laser, 197.3 x 2.5 cm, 2012.
*The first impetus towards an escalation of the events on the night of December 24, 1998, came from a laser aimed at Niedling’s eyes. He later tried to defend himself with a similar steel rod.

Day
Inkjet on paper in wooden frame, 230 x 180 cm, 2012.
*Area plan mapping events on the night of December 24, 1998.

Chamber
Inkjet on paper in wooden frame, 230 x 180 cm, 2012.
*Construction plan for the Pyramid Mountain concept, which Niedling acquired from Niermann, along with his proposed burial chamber.

Interview I + II
Laser print on paper, 194 and 780 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm each, 2012, divided by a pink sheet of paper.
*Transcript of interviews Niermann conducted with individuals who participated in the events on the night of December 24, 1998 and Transcript of Niermann’s interview with Niedling about his life.

Particles
Soot on glass in wooden frame, 89 x 69 cm, 2012.
*Seven panes coated with soot from burning assorted parts of Niedling’s artistic archive.

Coffin
Zinc, wood, peat, 190 x 45 x 50 cm, 2012.
*Receptacle for Niedling’s corpse in Pyramid Mountain.

Empire of the Sun (in crate)
C-print in a wooden frame, 162.5 x 125.5 cm, 2012.
*Niedling’s last photograph, taken on a supposedly ancient vegetation-covered pyramid in Visoko, Bosnia.

 

 

Irregular Readings

Posted on by Regina Regina

Irregular Readings is an end of (gallery) season and early evening of short readings and vocal actions by artists and writers Travis Jeppesen, Amy Patton with Erik Niedling, Hanne Lippard, Nisaar Ulama, Marcus Knupp, and Tove El.
The evening is hosted by artist Katharina Marszewski whose already de-installed exhibition CV CE LA VIE will have closed just one hour before the beginning of this event.

Travis Jeppesen is a novelist, poet, and art critic based in Berlin and London, where he teaches at the Royal College of Art. His writings on art, literature, and film regularly appear in Artforum, Bookforum, Upon Paper, and Art in America. He is a contributing editor to 3ammagazine.com. Jeppesen’s new novel, The Suiciders, will be published by Semiotext(e)/MIT Press in October. Since it’s summertime, he will read a poem.

Amy Patton reads from the diary of Erik Niedling. The artist would like to be buried in Pyramid Mountain, the largest tomb of all time, conceived by writer Ingo Niermann. To make this goal a reality, Niedling lived one year as though it were his last. The Future of Art: A Diary recounts the joys and horrors of that year. Niedling will further give latest information about the current state, and future plans of Pyramid Mountain.

Hanne Lippard uses language in all its forms in an effort to create an original aesthetic of the word. Nuances of No, the first comprehensive collection of the artist’s text work was published in June by Broken Dimanche Press BDP.
Her contribution to the event reads as follows: Stretched neck, the mouth remains the end point of the spinal column. Spoken word is our tonal brainpower. Spelling remains trivial. Re-composed through the pointed ears of others. Comma. Coma. Karma.

Nisaar Ulama is a philosopher, interested in how societies form themselves through knowledge and images. He will give a short lecture about our actual political paralysis, which, he thinks, is founded by a broken concept of »reality«, an addiction to knowledge, and a collapsing relation between subjectivity and space-time. If there is still time, Ulama will explain how artists and philosophers can solve these problems.

Marcus Knupp offers a form of communication that passes through the membrane of implied meaning and into the meaning of a new meaninglessness. From his vantage point within the media and marketing industry his gaze is cast upon a wide range of cultural sectors, topics and forms of mainstream incorporation.
He will read from one of his new short stories that either deals with the event-culture obsessed lifestyleartworld we find ourselves trapped in or about his recent experiences in some unnamed dark Berlin basement.

Tove El’s performances take their starting point in the situation and environment in which they are to take place. They raise questions about social codes, status, dreams and the struggle to pursue an artistic career.
At Irregular Readings El will sing the song ‘$$$’, a biography of a diva, originally written and performed with the Stockholm-based pop-punk band Balboa.

ART COLOGNE

Posted on by Regina Regina

For our second participation at ART COLOGNE EXILE is pleased to present artists Erik Niedling, Katharina Marszewski & Pauł Sochacki with further contributions by Anna Jandt, Katja Aufleger, Milch & Steven Warwick.

 

Art Cologne
Hall 11.3 Booth B-017
Messeplatz 1
50679 Köln

artcologne.de

ART-O-RAMA, Marseille

Posted on by Regina Regina

We are excited to announce participation in ART-O-RAMA art fair in Marseille with works by artists Pauł Sochacki, Pakui Hardware and Erik Niedling in reference to Le voyage dans la lune (1902) by George ‪Méliès‬.

Paul Sochacki’s series of paintings is entitled Le monde est un portrait and depict images of a planet. The works appear as almost identical, and yet can be quite different in size, color and through slight thematic variations. As with most of Paul Sochacki‘s paintings, the works appear at first sight deliberately naïve, almost childish. Upon closer inspection this surficial disguise fades and a stark, critical dimension reveals itself in the works. The particular body of work selected for ART-O-RAMA has a multitude of references but is specifically reminiscent of two early films by George Méliès La lune à un mètre (1898) and Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902).
Sochacki references early stop-motion animation and magical filmic fantasy but contrasts it through the title of the works. Sochacki’s body of work “Le monde est un portrait” brings the viewer to question the nature of technology in relation to the state of the planet we live in today: from environmental realities, to gender conflict to increasing political right-wing dangers, in Sochacki’s works Méliès’ early rocket landing on the moon becomes a sexualized dildo-shaped rocket flying into the mouth of planet earth and leaving a cum-like patina on the surface.

These paintings are set in dialogue with a new body of work by Erik Niedling. All blandly entitled Futures, the sculptures follow the tradition of bleigiessen in Germany. This archaic tradition, dating back to Roman times, remains a popular thing to do on New Year’s eve in many German-speaking and nordic countries with the leisurly aim to predict the future. Usually, small lead figurines are heated and liquified, then thrown in water to appear in a new shape that then are interpreted to predict one‘s future. Here, instead of small amounts, the artist pours kilograms of lead (now tin) into water to create the works, sourced from army‘s of tin soldiers the artist acquires for this purpose. These works appear as grand masculine connoted artistic gestures pointing in similar ways to issues of environmental use of resources, gender clichés as well as dooming macropolitical realities.

Pakui Hardware complete the conversation with a new series of neon and glazed ceramics sculptures entitled On Demand where the artists trace Capital traveling through bodies and materials.

→http://art-o-rama.fr

MANIFESTA, Palermo

Posted on by Regina Regina

We are happy to invite you to EXILE X Summer Camp: May the bridges I burn light the way selected by Manifesta as part of this year’s 5x5x5 collateral program for Manifesta in Palermo.

The initial part of May the bridges I burn light the way is a temporary exhibition that creates face-to-face conversations between social activism, art practices and Palermo’s socio-cultural realities. Departing point is the exploitation of the self for marketing purposes or as alibi for personal intentions, as sometimes in the #metoo debate or the current rise of populism.

May the bridges I burn light the way evolves through conversations, screenings and performative interventions at Cre.Zi Plus, a daily changing group exhibition at Ballaró Market, and the distribution of the street newspaper ‘Arts of the Working Class‘, a tool of integration between the citizens of Palermo and art professionals arriving to reflect on arts and society during the opening days of Manifesta 12.

Participants: Albrecht Pischel, Angels Miralda Tena, Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Ayami Awazuhara & Christopher Burman, Bob Hausmann, Club Fortuna, Heiner Franzen, Dietrich Meyer, Elmar Mellert, Kazuko Miyamoto, Erik Niedling, Federico del Vecchio, Iris Touliatou, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Kinga Kielczynska, Lauryn Youden, Lorenzo Marsili, Narine Arakelyan, Nschotschi Haslinger, Martin Kohout, Patrick Fabian Panetta, Paul Sochacki, Raffaela Naldi Rossano, Sarah Lehnerer, Sara Løve Daðadóttir, Sebastian Acker, Utopian Union, Zoë Claire Miller.

May the bridges I burn light the way is curated by María Inés Plaza Lazo, in collaboration with Alina Kolar, Dalia Maini and Christian Siekmeier.

EXILE X Summer Camp was organized with the support of the Austrian Cultural Forum, Laboratory ABC Moscow, Goethe Institut Palermo, Podere Veneri Vecchio, Studio Botanic and Reflektor M.

 

FURTHER INFORMATION

MANIFESTA 5x5x5
→May the bridges I burn light the way

DETAILED DAILY PROGRAM (June 13-17)
→Daily program (PDF, A3, 2 pages, 3MB, English)
→Programma giornaliero (PDF, A3, 2 pagine, 3MB, Italiano)

LOCATIONS (June 13-17)
→Cre.Zi Plus is a community kitchen and co-working space in the areal of Cantieri Culturali alla Zisa, where the conversations and screenings will take place.
→Ballarò is the oldest food market in Palermo held in Albergheria neighborhood, where EXILE will present a daily changing group exhibition during the opening dates of Manifesta 12.

DETAILED GOOGLE MAPS
→Cre.Zi Plus
→Ballarò

REVIEWS
→Marie Civikov in Jegens & Tevens (NL)
→Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir in art.zine.is (IS)
→Kathrin Schöner & Stephan Becker in Baunetz (PDF download, DE)

 

Erik Niedling

Posted on by Regina Regina

Born 1973 in Erfurt, Germany, lives and works in Berlin and Erfurt.

→erikniedling.com

Burial of the White Man

Posted on by admin

Erik Niedling with Ingo Niermann: Burial of the White Man

With contributions by Ann Cotton, Jakob Nolte

Burial of the White Man is a Bildungsroman about the friendship between artist Erik Niedling and writer Ingo Niermann. While in their thirties, they begin collaborating on a series of projects of ever-increasing ambition and scope: a tomb for all humans, a dissident replica of the U.S. Army, a German-Mozambican liberation movement, a ritual of living one year like it’s your last, a transformation of the oldest and most troubled German political party, a global fitness cult … Each failure is answered with an even more outrageous endeavor—culminating in the burial not only of themselves, but of the entire subspecies of the white man.

Burial of the White Man is an autofiction by Erik Niedling, interpolated by manifestos and proposals by Ingo Niermann and expanded by Austrian-American poet Ann Cotten and German novelist Jakob Nolte. The third volume of the Future of Art series, the book accompanies Erik Niedling’s web series, Pyramid Mountain: A Video Diary.

Design by Judith Banham

April 2019, English
12.5 x 19 cm, 288 pages, 81 b/w ill., softcover
ISBN 978-3-95679-426-1
Published by Sternberg Press