Everyone an Island After All? (Part II) at GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst

Artists: Loretta Fahrenholz, Sonia Gomes, Chris Reinecke, Tarona, Annette Wehrmann, Hodan-Ali Farah, Aria Farajnezhad, Anneli Käsmayr, Till Krause, Effrosyni Kontogeorgou, Bubu Mosiashvili, Nyabinghi Lab, Claudia Piepenbrock, Tim Reinecke, Dana Reina Téllez, Tropez, Doris Weinberger

Exhibition title: Everyone an Island After All? (Part II)

Venue: GAK Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Germany

Date: September 9 – November 5, 2023

Photography: All images copyright and courtesy of the artists and GAK Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst

Everyone an Island After All? is an approach to public space based on the images that shape it. These images are, on the one hand, presented to us by the public space, but at the same time and through interaction, they are also the (world) images with which we enter such spaces. They are shaped by inclusion and exclusion, structures of power and violence, consumption, history(-ies) and representation. Since May 2023, Everyone an Island After All? as an exhibition, research, and series of talks, has been pursuing the images we can (could) imagine instead and thus also the self-critical question: which society for Current Art?

Everyone an Island After All? is not an end in itself but a starting point for deviation, alienation and approximation.

The exhibition focuses on the relationship between observation and action and how they can form a still presence as representation. The respective artworks each touch on a relationship to time and space but do not follow a straight narrative or argumentative line but rather create a borderland of scrutiny: Annette Wehrmann’s photographs keep flowerbeds exploding forever, Chris Reinecke’s practice is a process-based question mark towards the logics and relationships of images, Sonia Gomes weaves and tells stories in material assemblages in order to put an exclamation mark behind each one of them, Tarona’s video work insists on a slowed down time and a slowed down gaze, in favor of body, movement and presence. Loretta Fahrenholz, on the other hand insists on a discomfort and demands to stay with it.

The dialogues consist of private or public meetings and conversations by a group of Bremen based artists and external guests. One aspect continuously followed is the relationship between guest and host. The shared alienation within the city as well as different forms of movement have been distilled so far as common ground but implemented with different focus points. GAK’s invitation to the artists is an open one, no special service or product is expected in return.

What is the (Bremen) public space actually about? What needs to be discussed? And what can de done within it – not least as GAK, as Society for Current Art? These questions also guide us throughout.

Events
Thu, 07.09.23, 18–21 h
Käsmayr, Krause & Weinberger
In the Bürgerpark
Gehen, Sprechen, Essen, Hören

Fri, 08.09.23, 19 h
Everyone an Island After All? (Part II)
Opening

Thu, 21.09.23
Nyabinghi Lab (Berlin), Hodan-Ali Farah, Dana Reina Téllez

Thu, 28.09.23
Sophie Boysen (Tropez, Berlin), Effrosyni Kontogeorgou, Doris Weinberger

Thu, 02.11.23, 18:30 h
Everyone an Island After All? (Part II)

Curator’s tour with Annette Hans

More information about the events will be published on our website shortly.

Event note

Changing City Bremen – 50 Years of Public Art
31.08.–03.09.2023 Jubilee weekend: Keynote speeches by international speakers and dialogues with local actors; workshops with Bremen’s art scene, experts and urban actors, among others with and by Statens konstråd / Public Art Agency Sweden, the European platform IN SITU, Britta Peters from Urbane Künste Ruhr and the Centre d’Art Waza from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

More information and program (German only): https://www.kunst-im-oeffentlichen-raum-bremen.de/

Everyone an Island After All? (Part II), 2023, exhibition view, GAK Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Photo: Jiye Lee

Annette Wehrmann: Blumensprengungen, 1991–95. Courtesy: Ort des Gegen e.V. Photo: Jiye Lee

Everyone an Island After All? (Part II), 2023, exhibition view, GAK Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Photo: Jiye Lee

Chris Reinecke: Deklinierte Flächen mit Rosette, 14.10.2021. Courtesy: Chris Reinecke. Photo: Jiye Lee

Everyone an Island After All? (Part II), 2023, exhibition view, GAK Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Photo: Jiye Lee

Loretta Fahrenholz: Ditch Plains, 2013. Courtesy: Galerie Buchholz, Berlin. Film still

Everyone an Island After All? (Part II), 2023, exhibition view, GAK Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Photo: Jiye Lee

Everyone an Island After All?, Archive material “A Lucky Strike“, GAK Bremen 2023. Foto: Jiye Lee

Aleksandra Mir: Bremen, 2005. Installation view, GAK Bremen 2023. Photo: Jiye Lee

Everyone an Island After All? (Part II), 2023, exhibition view, GAK Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Photo: Jiye Lee

Chris Reinecke: 2 einfache Muster mit Rosette, gelbe horizontale Bahnen, 14.3.2023. Courtesy: Chris Reinecke. Photo: Jiye Lee

Everyone an Island After All? (Part II), 2023, exhibition view, GAK Gesellschaft für aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Photo: Jiye Lee

Sonia Gomes: Prosa, 2023. Installation view, GAK Bremen 2023. Courtesy: the artist and Mendes Wood DM São Paulo, Brussels, New York. Photo: Jiye Lee

Sonia Gomes: Xeque Cego, 2019. Courtesy: the artist and Mendes Wood DM São Paulo, Brussels, New York. Photo: Jiye Lee

Sonia Gomes: Xeque Cego, 2019. Courtesy: the artist and Mendes Wood DM São Paulo, Brussels, New York

Sonia Gomes: Candieiro Mágico, 2019. Courtesy: the artist and Mendes Wood DM São Paulo, Brussels, New York

Sonia Gomes: Branca de Neve, 2019. Courtesy: the artist and Mendes Wood DM São Paulo, Brussels, New York

Tarona: Pivot, 2020. Installation view, GAK Bremen 2023. Photo: Jiye Lee

Tarona: Pivot, 2020. Courtesy: Tarona. Film still

Tarona: Pivot, 2020. Installation view, GAK Bremen 2023. Photo: Jiye Lee