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Narrating the Gaps at Künstlerhaus Bremen

October 31, 2022

Artists: Anna Bart, Carolin Klapp, Hannes Middelberg, Norman Neumann, Henrik Nieratschker

Exhibition title: Narrating the Gaps

Curated by: Nadja Quante

Venue: Künstlerhaus Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Date: October 15 – November 20, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and ©Künstlerhaus Bremen

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary, five artists from the studios of the Künstlerhaus Bremen explore the archive and the history of the house. Narrating the Gaps presents new works by Anna Bart, Carolin Klapp, Hannes Middelberg, Norman Neumann, and Henrik Nieratschker, who play with the gaps and voids in the history of the Künstlerhaus and develop new narratives from them.

Henrik Nieratschker’s work Geschichtung 1: Am Deich 68-69 Bremen examines the parallels between the artistic, commercial, freelance, and salaried work performed under the roof. He brings together the current function as an artists’ house with the building’s previous uses for example as a spice and lumber shop in an autofictional narrative. His installation consists of an edited archival image and four objects whose arrangement references the image: a ladder, a sack truck, a platform cart, and a shelf. Attached to each of the objects is a panel on which Nieratschker collages/layers archival images, architectural plans, drawings, and texts from different phases of the building we are in. The texts on the panels, titled “Loading Dock / Laderampe” “Restaurant/Basement / Restaurant/Keller” “Attic / Unterm Dach” and Gallery / Galerie”, are narratives in which Nieratschker weaves together different temporal layers from the history of the Künstlerhaus. The German texts can be heard in four audio pieces at the objects. Visitors are invited to take the headphones hanging below the archival image and plug them into the headphone jacks located on the objects. In the stories heard there, a complex narrative of the building’s use across time emerges, weaving together past, present, and future.

Starting with a letter from 1992 by Gustav Gisiger, a founding member of the Künstlerhaus, which was found in the archive, Carolin Klapp researched the dinner party that took place as the official inauguration of the Künstlerhaus on November 4, 1992. The document can be seen on the left wall of the gallery. Klapp conducted various interviews with participants of the party committee as well as guests of the dinner. In her installation Mittwoch 4. Nov. 1992 ab 20.00 Uhr [Wednesday Nov. 4, 1992, starting at 8 pm], she restages the dinner and recreates an image from the stories and documents that were transmitted. Just like the dinner that took place 30 years ago, the table is decorated with self-painted plates. The artist has painted them with motifs from the memories and impressions of the eyewitnesses. The installation will also serve as a backdrop for two table conversations with founding members and contemporary witnesses Horst Griese (on Oct. 20 at 4 pm) and Ute Ihlenfeldt (on Nov. 4 starting at 8 pm) hosted by the artist.

In his new work terminal kh, Norman Neumann makes the house itself resonate. In Neumann’s terminal, which is both an object and a listening station, sound recordings by the artist can be heard, which visitors can control via four buttons. They are spatial-acoustic investigations of various situations, spaces, objects and frequencies from the Künstlerhaus: workshop (Workshop Drone), basement (Basement Rhythm), courtyard (Courtyard Chorus) and gallery (Gallery Verb). They are accompanied by videos that abstractly depict the four situations on screen and simultaneously trace both the paths and the artist’s process in creating the work.

The work Arrangement Fenster by Hannes Middelberg is a processual installation of drawings that will be created over the course of the exhibition. Middelberg’s work addresses the Künstlerhaus as a site of artistic production and transformation. His drawings refer to everyday moments, objects and movements around the building and the courtyard of the Künstlerhaus. Middelberg produces the brush drawings with an ink he makes from carbon, which he produces using an apparatus at the entrance to the building. The object titled Kohlenstoffsammler [Carbon Collector] is a lamp made of wood and metal, which Middelberg regularly lights in public activations throughout the exhibition period (for dates, see Accompanying Program).

Installed in the back of the gallery there is a large-scale painting by Anna Bart. Bart has extensively explored the architectural idiosyndrasies of the studio spaces and stairwells of the Künstlerhaus. The work Atelier X collages an archival image of a studio space that was temporarily used as a common room with elements of the interior from the studio in the building that the artist herself used until the end of September. The interior view shows typical features of the studio spaces in the Künstlerhaus, such as the ceiling beams and coffered windows. The weather- and tear-resistant material of the canvas contrasts with the ephemeral and temporary use of the rooms.

In the space Bart created by the installation of her painting, she presents two collages of analog photographs. In her works Treppenhaus 1 and Treppenhaus 2, Bart also works with layerings, collaging photographs from the various staircases of the Künstlerhaus to create new architectures and structures.

In Narrating the Gaps, Bart, Klapp, Middelberg, Neumann, and Nieratschker present their searches and research on the Künstlerhaus and paint a picture of the house and the institution as a historical building, as a social event charged with individual meaning, as an ephemeral workspace and site of acoustic situations, and above all as an artistic process.

Narrating the Gaps, exhibition view, Künstlerhaus Bremen 2022, Photo: Fred Dott

Henrik Nieratschker, Geschichtung 1: Am Deich 68-69 Bremen, 2022, source: Staatsarchiv Bremen, speakers: Adele Schlichter, Max Radestock, installation view, Künstlerhaus Bremen 2022, Photo: Fred Dott