Gernot Wieland at Künstler:innenhaus Bremen

Artist: Gernot Wieland (with inserts by Carla Åhlander, Jeroen Jacobs, Lisa Robertson & Maxwell Stephens)

Exhibition title: You do not leave traces of your presence, just of your acts

Curated by: Nadja Quante

Venue: KH Künstler:innenhaus Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Date: September 7 – November 3, 2024

Photography:  all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and ©KH Künstler:innenhaus Bremen

From early September to early November 2024, Künstler:innenhaus Bremen presents the first solo exhibition of the artist and filmmaker Gernot Wieland in Germany. Wieland (b. 1968 in Horn, Austria) works primarily with film and lecture performance to investigate psychological connections between society and people. His work focuses on narration and memory. The artist entwines personal and historical narratives with scientific facts, fictional and real elements with tragicomic events, developing stories that are humorous and touching in equal measure. He constructs the stories with the help of idiosyncratic, sometimes absurd juxtapositions of images and language. Wieland uses various visual techniques, from drawing, photography, Super 8 sequences, diagrams and clay animation to potato printing and watercolor, interwoven with the use of voice-over and music on the soundtrack. The techniques appear as approachable and personal as the content. Autobiographical and fictional elements merge to create a poetic space. The plots unfold like dreams: they mix past and present, bringing together protagonists from Wieland’s childhood such as teachers, classmates or family members with figures from cultural history such as Sigmund Freud or Jackson Pollock. The personal is combined with the political and slowly develops into an analysis of social norms and repression. Like in a dream, the constellations and connections are surreal, irrational and confusing, but in the end everything makes sense again.

Wieland opens up a space for reflection on the connections between personality development, family influences, social restrictions and institutions. What effects do images have on our memory? What role do images play in the formation of the psyche, the social and the political? What role do truth and lies play in narratives?

In his exhibition at Künstler:innenhaus Bremen, Wieland presents a new short film in a site-specific installation that includes artistic contributions by Carla Åhlander, Jeroen Jacobs, Lisa Robertson and Maxwell Stephens, which are closely interwoven with the new film.

With Wieland, the Künstler:innenhaus is showing an artist who has continuously pursued and developed his highly idiosyncratic practice and who has been awarded various short film prizes in recent years. His films have been shown regularly at film festivals, film screenings and group exhibitions.

Following extensive solo exhibitions by the artist at Salzburger Kunstverein (2020), Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen (2021) and at argos centre for audiovisual arts in Brussels (2023) as well as solo film presentations at the Berlinische Galerie and at KINDL in Berlin, Künstler:innenhaus Bremen presents the first solo exhibition by Gernot Wieland in Germany.