From August 23 onwards, a unique project by artist Neïl Beloufa will transform the SCHIRN into a stage. Palais de Tokyo is currently hosting Beloufa's show “L’Ennemi de mon ennemi”, ending May 13. Curator Matthias Ulrich was already there.
The Palais de Tokyo in Paris is currently home to Neïl Beloufa’s overwhelming exhibition project “The enemy of my enemy” (in the French original: “L’Ennemi de mon ennemi”), in terms of both scale and substance. Here, all or almost all the crisis flashpoints in our media-delineated world parade. The supporters and their enemies are spread across the large hall like chess figures on a board and robots are constantly assigning them new positions, in this way and in line with some impenetrable algorithm, creating ever new constellations.
The robots are called either Marat or Sade, so named because video artist Hito Steyerl assigned them these two identities: Jean Paul Marat and Marquis de Sade. In the guise of these two protagonists Steyerl, or rather Beloufa, places violence center stage and also enquires as to their political or rather social legitimation. Alongside these automated pieces (placed on about 100 plateaus) – each of them a miniature stage with inter-communicating artefacts, posters, drawings and paintings, found objects, bric-à-brac, assemblages and all manner of other things – there hang, lie, or stand innumerable other exhibits that provide a set frame like fixed stars in a Milky Way.
How to unlearn knowledge
The psychedelic spectacle into which the exhibition objects are inserted and in which they adopt or insist on a constantly changing angle from which they be viewed, constitutes a set of instructions for how we can unlearn academic knowledge or insights gained in everyday life. For centuries this knowledge has bubbled away and flourished beneath the surface, and desperately lashes out as if seeking to put a final end to all the fun.
Exhibits that provide a set frame like fixed stars in a Milky Way.
The exhibition “L’Ennemi de mon ennemi” is a universal battle, a phantasy of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations couched in images, taking place in art and in the sphere of language preserved in art. It is a voiceless and poetic picture book of the political after the end of politics. There will be no victors at the end of this battle, there will be no triumphant new beginning, and certainly not in art, which has learned so perfectly to live and live well in a bubble, transforming images of the enemy into forms of capital.
Which images can we trust?
This exhibition is also provocative with a brilliance that can give you a headache. At the symbolic level it explains the death of the image. And of course does so with an assertion made with images that repeatedly confront you with possibly the most nonsensical question as to which images you can or cannot trust. In so doing, it goes straight to the heart of the image with which the former consensus of a community evolved into constant suspicion, blunting images by degrading them into mere information.
Today, this is to be encountered in almost all exhibitions, a few centimeters to one side of the artwork, where a block of text hangs that tries to capture in words what is to be seen in the piece. Trusting yourself and your own perception has long since ceased to be a matter of course. Beloufa’s exhibition integrates the glut of information and has it slosh back and forth as if in an agitated basin.
An agitated basin full of information
In the middle of it all: static agents, for example two drawings of Picasso, with his leanings toward Communism, both dripping in irony for the addressee opposite, Josef Stalin. Or a baseball, signed by Tony Blair. Or the painting “Le chasseur allemande” by Gustave Courbet, who during a stay in Frankfurt/Main in 1858-9 discovered his passion for hunting. Or the model of an Algerian war memorial dating from 1928, which 50 years later an artist framed in concrete to transform it into a peace memorial. For their part, all these immobile agents represent idiosyncratic movements that only through movement, only by refusing to stand still, can go beyond what can be explained by delimitation.
The beginning and the end of the extended exhibition are marked by an installation by Beloufa with caterpillar-like machines scattered around the space and a scenographic unit, decked out with transparent, movable walls reminiscent of Duchamp or El Lissitzky. On monitors and on the opposite wall you witness a projection of Beloufa’s 2011 video “People’s Passion, Lifestyle, Beautiful Wine, Gigantic Glass Towers, All Surrounded By Water.” Here, success and freedom circumscribe radiant summery neighborhoods accompanied by birds’ chirping, whereby the off-screen voices reel off the positivity of this Occidental utopia eloquently and unquestioningly, as if advertising real estate.
Babies straight off the assembly line
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Visiting Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock
For a long time, Lee Krasner lived together with Jackson Pollock in the modest area of Springs, East Hampton. Curator Ilka Voermann travelled to their common house, which still radiates a wondrous feeling of calm.
It always starts with an idea
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The steakhouse also serves fish
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Invulnerable bodies
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The Who’s Who of the Viennese Avant-Garde
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Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg
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“I’m with you. And we’re being eaten by words.”
A distorted voice, half human, half machine, guides through Pedro Barateiro’s film “The Opening Monologue” and ponders the meaning of language.
Visiting Mark Dion’s cabinet of wonders
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Visiting Mark Dion’s cabinet of wonders - Part 2
For decades, Mark Dion has created a collection of miraculous finds. We were allowed to enter his home cabinet of curiosities and made all sorts of discoveries.
From colonialism to democracy
From living trophy collections through museums with living exhibits to theme parks. An overview of the architectural history of the zoo.
The wilderness is on your doorstep
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“I won’t prostitute myself for the audience”
But then of course he’s an actor. For at least as long Lars Eidinger has also been a DJ.
2019 at the SCHIRN
Happy New Year! An overview of the upcoming exhibitions at the SCHIRN 2019.
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Note the lizard on the circuit
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XMAS SOUNDTRACK
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A dance of codified movements
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Bathing in the forest air
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Meet the artist Joachim Koester
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A Journey Through Mud and Confusion
A look into the fantastical, animated cosmos of Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg. Next year the SCHIRN will be showing the first comprehensive exhibition of the Swedish artist couple in Germany.
About the singularity of being
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About activism, Beuys and spotted hyenas
She is not only an artist, but also an activist. Lin-May Saeed constructs hybrid creatures with her sculptures, addressing the rights of animals and their relationship to humans. A studio visit.
Tree bark on a bed of moss
Organic? Old hat. Back to nature is the in thing. Not just in the travel industry, in fashion or in sport – no, on your plate, too.
On the trail of Per Kirkeby
An expedition as a key moment in his artistic development. In the WILDERNESS exhibition the SCHIRN is showing works by Danish artist Per Kirkeby, among others. We set out to follow in his footsteps.
A mysterious sculpture garden
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Seductive in gold, silver and copper
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Chasing through life
The video works by Alexey Vanushkin present their own flood of images to the viewer, drawn from the visual overload of the mass media.
The end of the world
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When fiction and reality become blurred
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Wilderness returns to art
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Invisible voyeurs
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King of the Animals. Wilhelm Kuhnert and the Image of Africa
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Not for the mainstream
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The shadow shows the light
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Art with room service
Magnificent palazzi, impressive hotel collections and lodgings that have accommodated Punk poets and painters: We take a journey through legendary hotel beds and addresses at which art plays an extraordinary role.
The truth at 4 a.m.
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Neïl Beloufa. Global Agreement
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Anarcheology as a concept
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Summer with Alicja Kwade
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