Einst (one time)

About

The starting point of the exhibition, held in Berlin, revolves around the term utopia. After the last exhibitions on the subject of rebellion and crossing-borders, the eight Bremen artists will question the possibilities of utopias in the past as well as the future: What could have been? What will come?
In their artistic positions, Dolf Bissinger, Armand de Bussy, Nanja Heid, Rosa Jaisli, Gotthart Kuppel, Tilman Rothermel, Angelika Sinn and Jens Weyers try to answer these questions. Utopia (literally meaning “without place” in Greek language) as an ideal image of an advanced community determines the approaches of the artists in both humorous and tragic ways.

Jens Weyers presents a collage of photos, which travel from rough landscape to industrial architecture. The sound installation by the writer Angelika Sinn looks into the question of freedom in a poetical way. Armand de Bussy, painter, photographer and installation artist, shows a panopticon of disneyworld figures (as they might be seen by a child) in his painting. The sculptor Rosa Jaisli shows an installation made of tracing paper: architectural elements are floating in space, linking the past with the future.
The artist, gallerist and curator Tilman Rothermel exhibits a different set of works on paper: Parts of his collection of  lottery coupons and related documents, which he gathered over the past years. Dolf Bissinger was interested in the ambiguity, which comes to mind with the term „utopia“: The desire for an island of happiness on the one hand, and the doubts about its existence on the other hand. Gotthart Kuppel, creator of found objects (objets trouvés) and assemblages, bends a wire so that it reads the word „utopia“ and repeats this process until his objects spill the word out themselves.
The animated film by sound artist and filmmaker Nanja Heid is appropriating the machinery of man, mobility, fashion, marketing and power in an abstract way.