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WHY BERLIN !

project: Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin, artist: Gerwald Rockenschaub,
Copyright: White Cube

WHY BERLIN ! No. 12 – Exhibitions in Berlin May – August 2008

Kölnischer Kunstverein

Mark Leckey, poster for the exhibition
“Resident” at Kölnischer Kunstverein

Central Art Award 2008
Mark Leckey
Resident
April 17 - June 8, 2008
Kölnischer Kunstverein
Die Brücke
Hahnenstraße 6
D - 50667 Cologne
Tuesday to Friday 1-7pm
Saturday and Sunday 11am-6pm

http://www.koelnischerkunstverein.de

Mark Leckey (born 1964), laureate of the Central Art Award, is presenting a comprehensive solo exhibition at the Kölnischer Kunstverein under the title of Resident. This title refers not only to Leckey’s residency at the Kunstverein but also to the idea of the exhibition, which is arranged along the main horizontal and vertical axes of the building. One of Leckey’s characteristic strategies is to use his place of residence as a starting point for his work.

In Mark Leckey’s exhibition we meet some well-known stars of popular culture, such as Jeff Koons’s Bunny or the cartoon figure of Felix the Cat, who came to fame during the 1920s in America. The exhibition presents both new and existing sculptures, animations, videos and films arising from Leckey’s fascination with cinema and television. He is concerned with the question of when an image becomes an object and vice versa, and how effects are created and perceived. In addition to the video installation Cinema-in-the-Round, a spatial intervention taking in the cellar, cinema and theatre reflects on the mechanisms of television and radio. On May 14th Leckey will hold a live performance in the film set installation on the stage. He will give a lecture on his ideas about the history of television, its significance and decay including the role of the BBC in this context.

The international jury for the 2008 Central Art Award of 75,000 Euro consisted of curators Heike Munder (Migros Museum, Zurich), Catherine Wood (Tate Modern, London) and Charles Esche (VanAbbe Museum, Eindhoven), the chairman of the board of the Central Krankenversicherung, Dr. Joachim von Rieth, Kathrin Jentjens and Anja Nathan-Dorn.

The exhibition catalogue is a co-production of the Kölnischer Kunstverein and Le Consortium, Dijon.

MARK LECKEY AT THE OPEN SPACE, ART COLOGNE, 16.4. - 20.4.08
At this year’s Art Cologne, the Kölnischer Kunstverein will be represented for the first time by an installation – referring to the exhibition of the Central Art Award laureate – at the Open Space. Mark Leckey will present his 7Windmill Street Interior (2007), which reproduces his London apartment as a film set. In conjunction with the exhibition Leckey has produced a limited silk-screen edition for acquisition by members of the Kunstverein.

REDCAT, Los Angeles

Image: photographer and date unknown

DAVE MCKENZIE:
SCREEN DOORS ON SUBMARINES
April 24 - June 15, 2008

Opening reception:
Wednesday, April 23, 6 - 9pm
Conversation between Dave McKenzie and Rodney McMillian, 6:30pm

REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney
CalArts Theater)

http://www.redcat.org

Through video, performance, sculpture and installation, Dave McKenzie explores notions of public space and cultural exchange in relation to the private self. Often informed by humble actions and everyday circumstances, his modest proposals examine the world around us, revealing a larger set of social and political truths that are evidenced in the everyday. McKenzie’s diverse practice presents a quiet but critical model for engagement, one that poetically examines our dependence upon prescribed social roles and responsibilities while contemplating the place of the individual within this particular moment
in time.

In a recent project entitled I’ll Be There (2007), McKenzie distributed a pre-printed day planner noting his whereabouts for the coming year and offering his audience opportunities to meet him at specified locations, dates, and times. He elaborates: “I am trying to make myself available without regard to outcome. Whether they decide to meet me or not is almost secondary.” Through this series of open-ended acts, he contemplates the potential he holds as an individual to bring about change, encourage dialogue, and forge new meaning.

For his exhibition at REDCAT, McKenzie presents a major body of work—consisting of new painting, sculpture and video—that expands upon his thinking about the individual’s relationship to the social body. He considers how we are shaped by the political events around us and, as individuals, negotiate the larger constructs of political, national or social identity. In this context, McKenzie also examines his own practice, revisiting past works as a form of exchange between his own thinking and public response. This is McKenzie’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles.

Born 1977 in Kingston, Jamaica, Dave McKenzie graduated from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and participated in residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, P.S.1 National Studio Program and the Studio Museum in Harlem. He presented solo exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Small A Projects, Portland; Gallery 40000, Chicago; and Savage Art Resources, Portland. His work has also been included in Performa 07, New York; Freestyle, Studio Museum in Harlem; Queens International, Queens Museum of Art; 24/7, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius; and Listening to New Voices, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. In 2005, McKenzie was the recipient of the William H. Johnson Prize and the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award. He lives and works in Brooklyn.

This exhibition is made possible in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The Standard Downtown is the official hotel of REDCAT.

Upcoming
Lecture by Eyal Weizman
May 6 | 8pm
Eyal Weizman talks about the architecture of exclusion, violence and control in the occupied territories of the Middle East. Using architecture as an “arena of speculation” about possible futures of Palestine, Weizman deals with how Israeli settlements and military bases can be reused, recycled or re-inhabited by Palestinians, at the moment that it is unplugged from the military and political powers that charge it. Weizman lives and works in London.

Admission to the gallery is always free
Gallery hours: noon-6 pm or intermission, closed Mondays
Visit http://www.redcat.org or call +1.213.237.2800 for more information

REDCAT
631 West 2nd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012 USA