DISTRICT 17: JESSE DARLING, MIA GOYETTE, LITO KATTOU, SHAUN MOTSI, JOHANNES PAUL RAETHER, JENNA SUTELA, BRUNO ZHU

In Neo-Tokyo’s District 17, raging cyberpunk bikers dissolve their hopeless subjectivities in the increasing speed and violence of their motorbikes. In the animation Akira, the city’s crumbling infrastructure is inhabited by orphaned lives. Ceaseless protests take over the streets, while governmental dodges are performed in the shadow. This is the site of encounter of the protagonist’s gang and Takashi – a childlike figure with turquoise skin. Generated by government-operated chemical experiments, Takashi’s psychic power spreads like a virus, mutates its host and grows out of control, unleashing questions about social formations and their agency. 

Reminiscent of this seminal encounter, in District 17, objects of different nature intersect in the exhibition space. Amorphous bodies, assembled from fragments of civilisational objects sit alongside skin-tight forms, empty shells remaining from a happening. Pipes creep along the walls – one cannot know whether they carry fuel or secretions. What one knows for sure is that some form of life lies in these structures. Next door, an abandoned arena made of cellulose awaits other encounters still to come.

As the post-urban architectures of District 17 are navigated with motorbikes, the organizational and spiritual mazes in the exhibition are traversed by many-headed, pluralistic organisms. District 17 is the scenario of encounters for collective bodies yet to be shaped.

Program

20.01.2018, 7 pm

Lithia, 2018 by Lito Kattou

performers Nelly Hakkaraien and Leah Katz 

10.02.2018, 11 am – 6 pm

17.02.2018, 11 am – 5 pm

Transformalor [Transformella malor ikeae] 4.4.6.6, Cave/Cage Office Hours, 2018 

by Johannes Paul Raether

Limited capacity. Registration is available on the website.

23.02.2018, 6–9 pm 

ORGS From Slime Mold to Silicon Valley and Beyond (2017, Garret Publications), reading by Jenna Sutela 

NTGNE, 2015 by Jesse Darling 

Jesse Darling (b. 1981, UK) lives and works in Berlin. Their practice is concerned with what it means to be a body in the world: to be inherently vulnerable. “Mortal” quality of empires and ideas, as a form of precarious optimism, is the starting point for JD in which fallibility and fungibility are acknowledged as fundamental qualities in living beings, societies, and technologies. JD has received commissions from MoMA Warsaw, The Serpentine Gallery, London and Volksbühne, Berlin among others; recent projects include solo exhibitions at Galerie Sultana, Paris (2017) and at Arcadia Missa, London (2016).

Mia Goyette (b. 1989, US) lives and works in Berlin. Utilitarian objects, disembodied hands, and evocations of the natural world are central in her sculptural work, wavering unsteadily between function and decay. The scenes hover around the fringes of the man-made environments and construct a narrative where material longevity is pitted against human mortality. Her works were recently shown at Galerie Luis Campaña, Berlin (2017); Kunstverein Hannover (2017); Bianca D’Alessandro, Copenhagen (2017); Between Bridges, Berlin (2017); Kunstverein Nürnberg (2016); Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden (2016). 

Lito Kattou (b. 1990, Cyprus) lives and works in London and Athens. Kattou’s sculptural works negotiate understandings of materiality and subjectivity through practices that span from digital fabrication to thermochemical elaborations. Articulated as weapons, skins, or cosmic elements, Kattou’s works engage with the sculptural potentiality of flatness, processes of embodiment and the transfigurations of material properties. Her works have recently been shown at Eleni Koroneou, Athens (2017) and Clearview, London (2017). Kattou was the invited artist at the 89plus Google Residency, Paris (2017).

Shaun Motsi (b. 1989, Zimbabwe) lives and works in Frankfurt am Main. Motsi works through painting, sculpture, and installation to explore the ways in which narratives are constructed, distributed, appropriated, undermined and ultimately absorbed into various cultural identities. Recent solo and group exhibitions include: PSM Gallery, Berlin (2017); STORE Contemporary, Dresden (2016); 8Eleven, Toronto (2015); TOVES, Copenhagen (2015); and Center, Berlin (2015).

Johannes Paul Raether (b. 1977, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. His practice traverses various platforms in Performing and Visual Arts as well as in the Humanities by the way of his SelfSisters (alter egos), which emerge at various sites in public and corporate spaces. His works and performances were shown in Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2017); transmediale, Berlin (2017); the 9th Berlin Biennale (2016); Berliner Festspiele (2016); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2016); and Fridericianum, Kassel (2015). Recent Solo exhibitions include Kunstverein Düsseldorf (2017), and Transmission Gallery, Glasgow (2015). Since 2016 he is Professor für Freie Kunst at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.

Bruno Zhu (b. 1991, Portugal) lives and works in Amsterdam. Zhu looks for what he calls grey zones and encounters between conceptual and material opposites. His interest in surface and style stands from a critical perspective, focusing on identity formation and representation. Recent solo presentations were at La Plage, Paris (2017), Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam (2016), and Foam Museum, Amsterdam (2015) and Serralves Museum, Oporto (2015). Zhu is associated with A MAIOR, a curatorial program set in a home furnishing and clothing store in Viseu, Portugal.