Artists: Monira Al Qadiri, Karl Blossfeldt, Dora Budor, Max Ernst, Joan Fontcuberta, Karrabing Film Collective, Max Hooper Schneider, Pierre Huyghe, Emma Kunz, Richard Oelze, Precious Okoyomon, Neri Oxman, Jean Painlevé, Pamela Rosenkranz, Rachel Rose, Henri Rousseau, Torbjørn Rødland, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Anj Smith
Exhibition title: Sun Rise | Sun Set
Curated by: Nina Pohl and Agnes Gryczkowska
Venue: Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany
Date: February 27 – July 25, 2020
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin
The cross-generational group show Sun Rise | Sun Set brings together contemporary, as well as 19th and 20th century artists and aims to reconfigure our relationship to the Earth and all its inhabitants by nourishing the ever-changing relationship between humans, animals, plants, inanimate objects, technologies and non-beings. The exhibited works guide us through surreal landscapes, biotechnical hybrids, futuristic scenarios and speculative concepts, creating an other-worldly experience that counters the current dark season of restriction, uncertainty, and loss. At a moment in which the planet’s habitability is becoming increasingly compromised due to human activity, the exhibition addresses the collective necessity to redefine our role as part of a whole and to find new ways of living in the world by rethinking the boundaries of our species and welcoming hybridity in all forms. Following the notion of circular systems and entangled, multispecies perspectives, Sun Rise | Sun Set highlights the inextricable links between humans and their nonhuman environment and encourages alternative attitudes that aim for the procreation and regeneration of the Earth to come.
The exhibition itself mutates into a desiring machine, proliferating in alternative ecosystems and timelines that revive oppressed histories and celebrate speculative future scenarios: Max Ernst’s iconic swamp landscape Swampangel (1940) and Pierre Huyghe’s biotechnical water basin Circadian Dilemma (El Día del Ojo) (2017) form a living organism in which flora, fauna, humans and technology intertwine and – framed by Emma Kunz’s energy field drawing No. 25 – proclaim a holistic understanding of the world that oscillates between the fantastic, the real and the potential. Meanwhile, the interplay of Pamela Rosenkranz’s luminous green earth heap Infection (Calvin Klein Obsession for Men), 2021 and Henri Rousseau’s masterpiece La Belle et la Bête (ca. 1908) attests to the interdependence, both symbiotic and destructive, between man and nature, while Rachel Rose’s egg-shaped sculptures of glass and rock seal an understanding of the material world in which natural, industrial, and organic are parts of the same cycle. While Neri Oxman’s Melanin Library (2020) and her research on the “universal pigment” melanin establishes the prototype of a new design practice that follows nature and its intelligent mechanisms, the indigenous artists’ collective Karrabing Film Collective tells a dystopian story that tackles questions about the entanglements of climate change, capitalism, and racism from the perspective of indigenous worlds.
Henri Rousseau, La Belle et la bête, c. 1908, 32 x 41,5 cm, Oil on canvas, Courtesy of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg; Pamela Rosenkranz, Infection (Calvin Klein Obsession for Men), 2021, Terra Preta, scent, LED light, Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers, Berlin; Sun Rise | Sun Set, exhibition view Schinkel Pavillon © Schinkel Pavillon and the artists, Photo: Andrea Rossetti
Max Ernst, Swampangel, 1940, 65.2 x 81.0 cm, Oil on canvas, Courtesy of Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, Schenkung Ulla und Richard Dreyfus-Best; Emma Kunz, Work No. 25, undated, 79 x 79 cm, Crayon and oil crayon on blue graph paper, Courtesy of Emma Kunz Zentrum, Würenlos; Pierre Huyghe, Circadian Dilemma (El Día del Ojo), 2017, 137.5 x 123 x 164.1 cm, Aquarium, Astyanax Mexicanus (eyeless and with eyes), algae, cave scan cast in concrete, black switchable glass, geo-localised program, Courtesy the artist; Marian Goodman Gallery, New York; Hauser & Wirth, London; Esther Schipper, Berlin; and Chantal Crousel, Paris; Sun Rise | Sun Set, exhibition view Schinkel Pavillon © Schinkel Pavillon and the artist, Photo: Andrea Rossetti
Dora Budor, Something To Remind Me, 2021, 7,5 x 36,5 x 16,5 cm, rental bicycle, Courtesy of the artist; Richard Oelze, Baumlandschaft, 1935, 42,3 x 56 cm, Pencil on cardboard, Courtesy of Galerie Brockstedt, Berlin; Sun Rise | Sun Set, exhibition view Schinkel Pavillon © Schinkel Pavillon and the artist, Photo: Andrea Rossetti
Sun Rise | Sun Set, exhibition view Schinkel Pavillon © Schinkel Pavillon and the artist, Photo: Andrea Rossetti
Neri Oxman, Melanin Library, 2020, 34,8 x 34,8 x 8cm, Concrete base, glass screw top vials containing a variety of organically and synthetically sourced melanin, Courtesy of the artist and The Mediated Matter Group, Sun Rise | Sun Set, exhibition view Schinkel Pavillon, © Schinkel Pavillon and the artist, Photo: Andrea Rossetti
Karrabing Film Collective, Mermaids, or Aiden in Wonderland, 2019, Video, colour (27 minutes), Courtesy of the artists, Sun Rise | Sun Set, exhibition view Schinkel Pavillon, © Schinkel Pavillon and the artists, Photo: Andrea Rossetti
Rachel Rose, Borns, 2019, various dimensions, Rock and glass, Courtesy of the artist and Pilar Corrias Gallery, London; Henri Rousseau, La Belle et la bête, c. 1908, 32 x 41,5 cm, Oil on canvas, Courtesy of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg; Pamela Rosenkranz, Infection (Calvin Klein Obsession for Men), 2021, Terra Preta, scent, LED light, Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers, Berlin; Sun Rise | Sun Set, exhibition view Schinkel Pavillon, © Schinkel Pavillon and the artists, Photo: Andrea Rossetti
Henri Rousseau, La Belle et la bête, c. 1908, 32 x 41,5 cm, Oil on canvas, Courtesy of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg; Pamela Rosenkranz, Infection (Calvin Klein Obsession for Men), 2021, Terra Preta, scent, LED light, Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers, Berlin; Sun Rise | Sun Set, exhibition view Schinkel Pavillon, © Schinkel Pavillon and the artists, Photo: Andrea Rossetti
Sun Rise | Sun Set, exhibition view Schinkel Pavillon, © Schinkel Pavillon and the artists, Photo: Andrea Rossetti
Precious Okoyomon, Ditto Ditto, 2020, 63 x150 x 74 cm, Rock, earthworms, moss, dirt, Courtesy of the artist ; Sun Rise | Sun Set, exhibition view Schinkel Pavillon, © Schinkel Pavillon and the artist, Photo: Malina Heinemann
Dora Budor, Something To Remind Me, 2021, 7,5 x 36,5 x 16,5 cm, rental bicycle, Courtesy of the artist; Sun Rise | Sun Set, exhibition view Schinkel Pavillon, © Schinkel Pavillon and the artist, Photo: Malina Heinemann
Monira Al Qadiri, Divine Memory (2019), video, 4.5 minutes, Image courtesy of artist
Monira Al Qadiri, Divine Memory (2019), video, 4.5 minutes, Image courtesy of artist
Monira Al Qadiri, Divine Memory (2019), video, 4.5 minutes, Image courtesy of artist
Monira Al Qadiri, Divine Memory (2019), video, 4.5 minutes, Image courtesy of artist