Opening program: Tomas Schmit. Pieces, Actions, Documents 1962–1970

About

3G rule applies: All visitors must present a valid proof of vaccination or recovery, or a negative COVID-19 test taken on the day of the event.

From 4 pm
Zyklus for Water-Pails (or bottles) – an interpretation by Nina Canell
Based on Tomas Schmit, Zyklus for Water-Pails (#1), 1962

Nina Canell works with transformation and material agency in her sculptural installations. She uses diverse materials such as electricity, water, subsea cables, mastic gum and shoelaces. They demonstrate the artist’s engagement with energy distribution and their partially hidden modes of action. Canell’s focus is not on the finished art object, but on the temporary and material aspects of process and synergy. On the occasion of the Tomas Schmit Retrospective, Canell will interpret Schmit’s central work, Zyklus for Water-Pails (or Bottles) (1962), and its underlying reflections on the nature of time, matter, and processuality in the form of a sculptural situation. 

5 pm
Sanitas #10 – Solo Version – an interpretation by Hajnal Németh
Based on Tomas Schmit, Sanitas – 200 Theater Pieces #10 (#3), 1962
Performed by: Tobias Christl, Júlia Koffler, Erik Leuthäuser, Fama M’Boup, Dora Osterloh

6 pm
Five Songs, One End – a piece by Hajnal Németh
Based on Tomas Schmit, Two Compositions to Justify a Performance (#25), 1964
Performed by: Tobias Christl, Júlia Koffler, Erik Leuthäuser, Fama M’Boup, Dora Osterloh

Hajnal Németh works at the intersection of visual art and music. Her interdisciplinary work includes performances, spatial installations, and moving image formats. Her works are based on notations, song lyrics, poems, or prose fragments from sources as diverse as pop music, classical genres, Fluxus scores, as well as the artist’s own texts. Her experimental handling of time, rhythm, and intonation, as well as her playful questioning of structures of meaning often manifest themselves in minimalist interventions in existing material, with which she twists the meaning of a spoken or sung sentence, for example. In her ongoing collaborations with singers, choirs, and actors, she shows how contexts can be arbitrarily constructed and then dissected again. In her exploration of Tomas Schmit’s work, Németh has explicitly based her interpretations on pieces that declare the principle of chance to be the measure of meaning or which destabilize the perception of time and duration in a conceptual inversion.

The Tomas Schmit Retrospective is a project by Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) and Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, in collaboration with Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, and the tomas schmit archiv, Berlin
Curators: Marius Babias, Jenny Graser, Krisztina Hunya