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ICHTS at Dortmunder Kunstverein

14.4_Olga Pedan_Trollagem Trollerei Rumpetroll_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Artists: Sam Anderson, Frieder Haller, Aleksander Hardashnakov, Olga Pedan, Arjan Stockhausen

Exhibition title: ICHTS

Venue: Dortmunder Kunstverein, Dortmund, Germany

Date: August 27 – October 30, 2016

Photography: DOKV, Niklas Taleb, images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Dortmunder Kunstverein

Based on a common interest for the aesthetics of the naive, manual production and the decay, the five artists Sam Anderson (*1982 in Los Angeles, USA), Frieder Haller (*1987 in Freiburg im Breisgau, GER), Aleksander Hardashnakov (*1982 in Toronto, CA), Olga Pedan (*1988 in Kharkov, UKR) und Arjan Stockhausen (*1992 in Alfter, GER) are brought together within the frameworks of the exhibition “ICHTS”. Their works are embedded in a fictional narration which addresses the contradictory nature of reality with its continuous shifts in politics and society. The exhibition does not attempt to offer a clarified and analytical view upon the world, but rather, within a framework set by each individual work of art, to trigger a sentiment which comes from the manifestation of a diffuse uncertainty.

The exhibition title ICHTS already stands emblematically for a displacement: the artificial word “ichts” is composed of the word “nichts”, meaning nothing, and “ich”, meaning I – google translate proposes “Othing” as the English equivalent. The neology thus contains a dichotomy between a manifold identity and a departure from the idea of a singular self. Othing could refer to any formation of people, to a hybrid form, to a mutant, to an always changing digital I, to a personality without a body, or perhaps a new term, which ultimately replaces the self.

Even the exhibition space shifts into the uncertain: a few lopsided office lamps hang from the ceiling, the wiring is deficient. Two newly put-in dry walls crudely rise from the vestiges of their construction, impromptu-like curtains scantily cover the windows, attached to a rope with safety pins. Recalling a neutral, non significant office architecture, the exhibition space of the Dortmunder Kunstverein seems under construction and abandoned at the same time. The arrangement appears to be of temporary nature and the scattered works seem as if they were fragments or relics of events that took place there.

Detached from a temporal allocation, the works of the five artists develop narrations about different forms of the self – partly mythological, mystical, dystopian or even esoteric. Children, demons, murderers, nuns, manga characters, trolls, left and decayed concrete constructions, and a human resting his back on a gorilla evoke fantastical worlds in which emotions like happiness or fear, hope or pain, evanescence and fragility can be openly expressed. Here, the need to see the human as a non-rational being is formulated and, by a visual narrative, to activate this strength.

The exhibition was conceived by Oriane Durand together with Frieder Haller and Arjan Stockhausen.

1_Installation view_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

2_Sam Anderson_Desk Set_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto DOKV

Sam Anderson, Desk Set, 2016

3_Sam Anderson_Desk Set_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Sam Anderson, Desk Set, 2016

4_Sam Anderson_Desk Set_2016_Detail_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Sam Anderson, Desk Set, 2016 (detail)

5_Arjan Stockhausen_Trying to stay away from Inselwissen, 2015_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Arjan Stockhausen, Trying to stay away from Inselwissen, 2015

6_Arjan Stockhausen_Artificially Intelligent Gorilla and Alzheimer [...]_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Arjan Stockhausen, Artificially Intelligent Gorilla and Alzheimer […], 2016

7_Arjan Stockhausen_Installation view_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

8_Aleksander Hardashnakov_Installation view_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto DOKV

9_Aleksander Hardashnakov_Untitled_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Aleksander Hardashnakov, Untitled, 2016

10_Installation view_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

11_Installation view_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

12_Aleksander Hardashnakov_Assorted Cutouts, Detail_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Aleksander Hardashnakov, Assorted Cutouts, 2016 (detail)

13_Aleksander Hardashnakov_Assorted Cutouts, Detail_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Aleksander Hardashnakov, Assorted Cutouts, 2016 (detail)

14.1_Installation view_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

14.2_Olga Pedan_Trollagem Trollerei Rumpetroll_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Olga Pedan, Trollagem Trollerei Rumpetroll, 2016

14.3_Olga Pedan_Trollagem Trollerei Rumpetroll, Detail_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Olga Pedan, Trollagem Trollerei Rumpetroll, 2016 (detail)

14.4_Olga Pedan_Trollagem Trollerei Rumpetroll_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Olga Pedan, Trollagem Trollerei Rumpetroll, 2016

15_Installation view_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

16_Aleksander Hardashnakov_Untitled_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Aleksander Hardashnakov, Untitled, 2016

17_Installation view_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

18.1_Frieder Haller_Spottgeburt, Detail_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Frieder Haller, Spottgeburt, 2016 (detail)

18.2_Frieder Haller_Spottgeburt, Detail_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Frieder Haller, Spottgeburt, 2016 (detail)

18.3_Frieder Haller_Spottgeburt, Detail_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Frieder Haller, Spottgeburt, 2016 (detail)

19_Installation view_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto DOKV

20_Aleksander Hardashnakov_Untitled_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Aleksander Hardashnakov, Untitled, 2016

21_Aleksander Hardashnakov_Untitled_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Aleksander Hardashnakov, Untitled, 2016

22_Frieder Haller_Spottgeburt, Detail_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Frieder Haller, Spottgeburt, 2016 (detail)

23_Frieder Haller_Haus_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Frieder Haller, Haus, 2016

24_Installation view_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto DOKV

25_Sam Anderson_Helpful Waitress Angel_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto DOKV

Sam Anderson, Helpful Waitress Angel, 2016

26_Sam Anderson_Helpful Waitress Angel_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Sam Anderson, Helpful Waitress Angel, 2016

27_Sam Anderson_Helpful Waitress Angel_ICHTS_2016_Dortmunder Kunstverein_Foto Niklas Taleb

Sam Anderson, Helpful Waitress Angel, 2016

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