Artist: Julian-Jakob Kneer
Exhibition title: wicked games
Curated by: Thomas Butler
Presented by: Room E-10 27
Venue: Center, Berlin, Germany
Date: April 26 – 29, 2018
Photography: Photos by Paul Barsch, copyright the artist, courtesy the artist and Room E–10 27 @ Center
Room E-10 27 @ Center is pleased to present wicked games, a solo exhibition by Julian-Jakob Kneer. Kneer is primarily a sculptor and installation artist. He questions social mores with art that skirts the line between abjection and attraction. His investigations of subcultural semiotics and obscure bodily fetishes are underlined by a particular interest in (traditional) craft and the juxtaposition of opposing aesthetics.
For his presentation at Center, the artist focuses his attention on the carnival and its potential to parody and produce grotesque identity configurations. The carnival sets the stage for a world of extremes where laughter subverts authority. His engagement with this theme raises questions about our conception of high and low culture, where the centrality of archetypes continues to exert a powerful influence on the collective imagination.
Loners, Emos (emotional hardcore rockers), and cultural misfits are exemplified by the figure of the Waggis, a character that figures in the yearly Carnival of Basel. In this carnival, the Waggis is excluded from the community and this is played out as a parody of social relations and groupthink. The Waggis occupies the paradoxical position of being a misfit within a group of outsiders.
The subjective identity produced by the group and those excluded from the group throws up questions related to libidinal investment, the taboos on which power relations are constructed and the violence that is exacted on, and by, those outside of the norm.
–Thomas Butler
wicked games
Julian-Jakob Kneer
Martini awoke up from a beautiful dream in a sleep of reason as perfect as the sonnet. All-fold brutal sonatas of the unearthly universe and seven heavens played by the dark ark himself in exchange for a mortal soul. Not his, this practitioner of mesmerism. Enraptured, transported, enchanted and awake without breathing, he drew another siren to the rocks. Calimari Wednesday, Arm aber Sexy: she washed up. They were all washed up. Love too wash them up. Young and dumb and full of glum. Elixir of quietude – just the right dose. Feeling so faithless. Lost under the surface. La voce to me!
His dream music haunted him deeper in still waters, cheeks grew gaunt, hair lank. Points emerged. Unable to work or sleep or go outside. Breathing with no air. At the time of initial evaluation, the patient was noted to have normal hygiene and grooming. He greeted the clinician and responded appropriately to questioning, but stated,
“I just don’t want to go outside”.
Barron’s IQ will make you shiver. First wives in cupboards start to stink.
Special and exceptional thanks to The very special Secret, but Mother’s love wears thin no matter how many cars get struck by lighting for you. Syncretic synergy. Another piece of the puzzle with none of the effect. All the junk DNA of the internet and it felt like a kiss: isle of stagnant apathetics, gums mashed with sugar leaves, avocado, your tears and tide pods. Three unclean spirits. Keket? Not even sure which team I genuinely belong to. Instigated madnesses. A royal flush. The lambs still screaming. Heh Heh Hecate. Different accounts. But still — no air.
Unbearable light in a Target ad. A uBahn prophecy: don’t take her, fella! This one got the shine. Something rotten buried in a desert bound in a bow. Took his shine too and licked chapped lips. Sublimated visions for sweety. Dude I’m so cancelled. Turned an ankle. Ourobourous. Scaled walls. Three unclean spirits and a dup root social matrix, so cute. They built one another in white cliffs and white houses. But she traveled #88. Flotsam, Jetsam, now I’ve got him, boys! No air, no air, no air.
>be me
>g0thic shut-in in a haunted haus
>now you’rE the 0nE iMAGining thIngs
…croak 😉
–Ella Plevin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, brutie, 2018 , mannequin, papier-mâché-mask, latex gloves, latex stockings, metal chain, lacquer on wooden shoes, 210 x 60 x 40 cm
Julian-Jakob Kneer, 0ut of the dark into the night, 0ut of the LARP into the fight, 2018 , lacquer on wooden shoes, velvet stockings, velvet gloves, silk ribbon, dimensions variable
Julian-Jakob Kneer, brutie, 2018 , mannequin, papier-mâché-mask, latex gloves, latex stockings, metal chain, lacquer on wooden shoes, 210 x 60 x 40 cm
Julian-Jakob Kneer, brutie, 2018 , mannequin, papier-mâché-mask, latex gloves, latex stockings, metal chain, lacquer on wooden shoes, 210 x 60 x 40 cm
Julian-Jakob Kneer, brutie, 2018 , mannequin, papier-mâché-mask, latex gloves, latex stockings, metal chain, lacquer on wooden shoes, 210 x 60 x 40 cm
Julian-Jakob Kneer, brutie, 2018 , mannequin, papier-mâché-mask, latex gloves, latex stockings, metal chain, lacquer on wooden shoes, 210 x 60 x 40 cm
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, SANGuinic spleen, 2018 , lacquer on wooden shoes, polyester pantyhose, metal chain, satin gloves, velvet ribbon, nail, dimensions variable
Julian-Jakob Kneer, retr0avantgarde, 2018 , lacquer on burned wooden shoes, polyester pantyhose, metal chain, satin gloves, velvet ribbon, nail, dimensions variable
Julian-Jakob Kneer, retr0avantgarde, 2018 , lacquer on burned wooden shoes, polyester pantyhose, metal chain, satin gloves, velvet ribbon, nail, dimensions variable
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, darkness my, 0ld friend, 2018 , lacquer on wooden shoes, velvet stockings, metal chain, satin gloves, silk ribbon, dimensions variable
Julian-Jakob Kneer, darkness my, 0ld friend, 2018 , lacquer on wooden shoes, velvet stockings, metal chain, satin gloves, silk ribbon, dimensions variable
Julian-Jakob Kneer, sardonic heraldrY, 2018, lacquer on wooden shoes, polyester pantyhose, metal chain, polyester gloves, velvet ribbon, dimensions variable
Julian-Jakob Kneer, sardonic heraldrY, 2018, lacquer on wooden shoes, polyester pantyhose, metal chain, polyester gloves, velvet ribbon, dimensions variable
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, am Ende gibt es doch ein Ende (game is play), 2018, papier-mâché-mask, nail, 60 x 60 x 30 cm
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, am Ende gibt es doch ein Ende (game is play), 2018, papier-mâché-mask, nail, 60 x 60 x 30 cm
Julian-Jakob Kneer, dance macabre (weiter! weiter ins verderben, wir müssen leben bis wir sterben), 2018, 04’20’’ HD video installation with sound, screen, costume, dimensions variable
Julian-Jakob Kneer, dance macabre (weiter! weiter ins verderben, wir müssen leben bis wir sterben), 2018, 04’20’’ HD video installation with sound, screen, costume, dimensions variable
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin
Julian-Jakob Kneer, wicked games, 2018, exhibition view, presented by: Room E-10 27 at Center, Berlin