Kepler 452b

2019, Berlin
www.kepler452b.org

Kepler 452b is a sixteen-hour immersive imaginary space trip combining art, fashion, and music. Using the metaphor of space migration, Kepler 452b will create a venue for envisioning possible futures defined by openness, inclusion, diversity and collective-individualism. Kepler 452b launched on September 23, 2017, at 6pm in Berlin.”Discovered by NASA in 2015, Kepler 452b is a potentially habitable super-earth that is 1400 light years away. The night throughout which the event takes place will be separated into three chapters: launching from Earth, entering space, and landing on Kepler 452b. A series of live performances, art installations and DJ sets will be carried out respective to each theme. Participants will connect with each other through interactive performances and the transformation of their own appearance.”

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With Ancestral Voices, Vladimir Ivkovic, Valentino Mora, Bjørn Melhus, Mikey Woodbridge, Amir Fattal, Christoph Girardet, Matthias Müller, Neel, Nihiti, Nuel, MIIIA, Ornella Fieres, Nelson Santos, Stefan Schneider, Tamandua, Mataya Waldenberg, xvii Studio, Young Boy Dancing Group, Proxima Plus ft. ZAFTIK musik, Embarrassed Years (Shani Granot, Nevo Romano, Ariel Cohen) and Daven Zang, amongst others.

Experimental Music
The leading musical characters will accompany the listener in a space race through different genres. Rising from earth’s disintegration and chaos with the dark ambient artist Ancestral Voices, the ozone layer will be broken on Stefan Schneider’s uplifting new live set. The gatekeeper of the cosmos, Vladimir Ivkovic, will ready the dancers for their ultimate mission among the stars. After a farewell to the galaxy on Valentino Mora’s dub techno tonalities, Kepler 452b will take shape with the gloomy fast paced sounds of MIIIA, Neel and Nuel.

Art and performance
A fantastical environment created by the crew members of Kepler 452b will greet the visitors as they board the spaceship. Performances will be orchestrated throughout the night. The Young Boy Dancing Group’s show is constructed with different scenes addressing sexuality, digital age, fetishes, contemporary dance, pop and youth culture. Tamandua’s imagery and performance, deeply interwoven with their passion for kinbaku, the Japan originated art of rope bondage, will demonstrate how rope becomes the tool of choice with which to navigate the world and life in general on a creative and emotional level. A performance by Mataya Waldenberg will focus on the theme of gender and its place in society, using their own body as their main medium – roaming in between male and female, the real and the fantastic. Embarrassed Years will take a nonjudgmental look at human beings’ most intimate moments, and the dance collective Proxima Plus (Irene Anglada and Marissa Medal) will bring people closer by connecting and exchanging energy to guide the “lucky ones” on their journey to Kepler 425b, accompanied by the juicy waves of ZAFTIK music.

Fashion
The creations of designer Florian Máthé bring the conversation about equality and LGBTQ+ rights to the forefront while the brand new Fall/Winter Collection by artist Bjørn Melhus celebrates the financial crisis on Earth. Nelson Santos’ work is a fusion of art and fashion, exploring a different side of fashion and the dichotomy between the beautiful and the ugly. Bodies that shatter, by Xvii Studio, focuses on the contemporary phenomenon of ‘net feminism’, which conceives female melancholy as a methodological practice that questions and thwarts society’s patriarchal structures. The label DAVENZANG, by designer Daven Zang, is for unisex souls who adhere to androgynism and show their endless love to the world.

Kepler 452b

2017, Berlin
www.kepler452b.org

Kepler 452b is a sixteen-hour immersive imaginary space trip combining art, fashion, and music. Using the metaphor of space migration, Kepler 452b will create a venue for envisioning possible futures defined by openness, inclusion, diversity and collective-individualism. Kepler 452b launched on September 23, 2017, at 6pm in Berlin.

“Discovered by NASA in 2015, Kepler 452b is a potentially habitable super-earth that is 1400 light years away. The night throughout which the event takes place will be separated into three chapters: launching from Earth, entering space, and landing on Kepler 452b. A series of live performances, art installations and DJ sets will be carried out respective to each theme. Participants will connect with each other through interactive performances and the transformation of their own appearance.”

see more

With Ancestral Voices, Vladimir Ivkovic, Valentino Mora, Bjørn Melhus, Mikey Woodbridge, Amir Fattal, Christoph Girardet, Matthias Müller, Neel, Nihiti, Nuel, MIIIA, Ornella Fieres, Nelson Santos, Stefan Schneider, Tamandua, Mataya Waldenberg, xvii Studio, Young Boy Dancing Group, Proxima Plus ft. ZAFTIK musik, Embarrassed Years (Shani Granot, Nevo Romano, Ariel Cohen) and Daven Zang, amongst others.

Experimental Music
The leading musical characters will accompany the listener in a space race through different genres. Rising from earth’s disintegration and chaos with the dark ambient artist Ancestral Voices, the ozone layer will be broken on Stefan Schneider’s uplifting new live set. The gatekeeper of the cosmos, Vladimir Ivkovic, will ready the dancers for their ultimate mission among the stars. After a farewell to the galaxy on Valentino Mora’s dub techno tonalities, Kepler 452b will take shape with the gloomy fast paced sounds of MIIIA, Neel and Nuel.

Art and performance
A fantastical environment created by the crew members of Kepler 452b will greet the visitors as they board the spaceship. Performances will be orchestrated throughout the night. The Young Boy Dancing Group’s show is constructed with different scenes addressing sexuality, digital age, fetishes, contemporary dance, pop and youth culture. Tamandua’s imagery and performance, deeply interwoven with their passion for kinbaku, the Japan originated art of rope bondage, will demonstrate how rope becomes the tool of choice with which to navigate the world and life in general on a creative and emotional level. A performance by Mataya Waldenberg will focus on the theme of gender and its place in society, using their own body as their main medium – roaming in between male and female, the real and the fantastic. Embarrassed Years will take a nonjudgmental look at human beings’ most intimate moments, and the dance collective Proxima Plus (Irene Anglada and Marissa Medal) will bring people closer by connecting and exchanging energy to guide the “lucky ones” on their journey to Kepler 425b, accompanied by the juicy waves of ZAFTIK music.

Fashion
The creations of designer Florian Máthé bring the conversation about equality and LGBTQ+ rights to the forefront while the brand new Fall/Winter Collection by artist Bjørn Melhus celebrates the financial crisis on Earth. Nelson Santos’ work is a fusion of art and fashion, exploring a different side of fashion and the dichotomy between the beautiful and the ugly. Bodies that shatter, by Xvii Studio, focuses on the contemporary phenomenon of ‘net feminism’, which conceives female melancholy as a methodological practice that questions and thwarts society’s patriarchal structures. The label DAVENZANG, by designer Daven Zang, is for unisex souls who adhere to androgynism and show their endless love to the world.

Artist studio visits

2015, for MOMENTUM Berlin
www.momentumworldwide.org

Documentation of the studio visits of two MOMENTUM residency artists: Sara Alaviand and Keegan Luttrell. Keegan Luttrell is a multi-media artist living and working in Leysin, Switzerland. More info about MOMENTUM residency here. Sara Alavi (b.1979, Tehran) is an Iranian artist based in Milan. More info about MOMENTUM residency here.

Food Art Week Berlin 2019

2019, for Food Art Week Berlin
entretempo-kitchen-gallery.com/food-art-week/

Food Art Week is a project created by artist Tainá Guedes
Realised by Entretempo Kitchen Gallery.The Food Art Week is a food and art festival created by artist Tainá Guedes, initiated by Entretempo Kitchen Gallery. The event was born in Berlin, the capital of innovation, creativity good food and sustainable projects.

Loverss: photo documentation

2015, for MOMENTUM Berlin
www.momentumworldwide.org/momentum-artist-residencies/residency-past/fang_lu_residency_2015/
The shooting of the artwork “Loveless” by Fang Lu, photo documentation

The BERLIN BEIJING ARTIST PROGRAM, initiated by GEKA e.V. – Gesellschaft für Deutsch-Chinesischen Kulturellen Austausch * Association for German-Chinese Cultural Exchange – and BMW, features an Artist Residency with FANG LU, a chineese Video Artist, coordinated by MOMENTUM, with the support of the Sammlung Hoffmann.
(full text on the exhibition page)

Molding the Void

2019, Berlin
www.elenidanesi.com/molding-the-void-berlin
Research movement workshop by Eleni Danesi, photo documentation

This research workshop is a cross-disciplinary study on the perception of our bodies in architectural environments. By the term “architectural environments”, we refer not to what is constructed with materials (bricks, stones, wood…) but to what lays in between. In Japanese culture, this in-between space is called “ma”, the negative space, the space between the edges, between the beginning and the end, space and time in which we experience life.

BALAGAN!!! installation shots

BALAGAN!!! Contemporary Art from the Former Soviet Union and Other Mythical Places
75 Artists from 14 Countries from the Former “East”, Curated by David Elliott, Produced by MOMENTUM.Balagan knows no borders. Although the contemporary condition of the world is almost impossible to categorise, the Russians have a single word for it that describes, with celebratory gusto, a farce, a mess, a SNAFU, the most unholy of cock-ups. What existentialism was for war-ravaged Europe, or ‘normality’ for the Cold War, balagan is for the whole world today.
(full text by David Eliott on the exhibition page)

Hero Mother installation shots

2016, for MOMENTUM Berlin
www.momentumworldwide.org/exhibitions/hero-mother/
Hero Mother: Contemporary Art by Post-Communist Women Rethinking Heroism
Curated by Bojana Pejić & Rachel Rits-Volloch

HERO MOTHER is an international exhibition of 30 women artists from 20 countries. It is part of MOMENTUM’s program for 2016, consisting of a series of events, residencies and exhibitions called BEYOND BALAGAN, which inquires into contemporary art and its relation to life. HERO MOTHER follows on from the major exhibition BALAGAN!!! Contemporary Art from the Former Soviet Union and Other Mythical Places curated by David Elliott, which was held in three venues in Berlin from 14 November till 23 December 2015.
(full text on the exhibition page)

Ab-surdus

2014, for MOMENTUM Berlin
www.momentumworldwide.org/exhibitions/past/ab-surdus/
Ab-surdus. Via Lewandowsky: a case-study
Curated by Isabel de Sena

When the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen announced it would buy Neo-Dada and Fluxus artist Wim T. Schippers’ absurdist installation, Peanut-Butter Floor (1964) in 2010, it made front page in the context of the austerity cuts that were dominating public discourse at the time. For many it was welcome and much longed-for ‘proof’ that contemporary art was nothing more than an absurd leftist hobby, meaningless for society at large. Indeed, on what exactly did the museum really spend thousands of euros, while families struggled to provide their children with proper health-care? Peanut-butter! The opposition, consisting mainly of artists and the art-loving public, was rather unsuccessful in defending the value and legitimacy of making such a purchase, and to this day Peanut-Butter Floor retains a bad after-taste.
(full text on the exhibition page)

Creating for the future

2015, for MOMENTUM Berlin
www.momentumworldwide.org/exhibitions/creating-for-the-future/
Creating for the future: thinking about the unthinkable
Curated by Cao Dan and Li Zhenhua

Originally existing as an exhibition in print and online curated by Cao Dan and Li Zhenhua for LEAP – the art magazine for contemporary China, MOMENTUM now brings ‘Creating the Future: Thinking about the Unthinkable’ to Berlin in real time and three-dimensional space, to literally LEAP off the page, off the screen, and into our gallery space.
(full text on the exhibition page)


Scheiße • 夏色

2015, for MOMENTUM Berlin
www.momentumworldwide.org/exhibitions/scheisse-zhou-xiaohu/
Zhou Xiaohu Solo Exhibition & Video Bureau presenting Zhou Xiaohu

MOMENTUM is proud to present the first solo show in Germany of the pioneering Chinese video and animation artist Zhou Xiaohu. It is curated by English-born curator and writer, David Elliott, who has worked extensively on contemporary Asian art.

Scheiße • 夏色, German slang for faeces and a popular expletive, the artist’s choice for the exhibition’s title, is intended to reflect not upon his view of art but on the conditions in which all work is made, including art. This idea is clearly expressed in Das Kapital No. 1 – Questionnaire Show, (2015), a new site-specific performance and installation Zhou has made for this exhibition which has developed out of concerns that have run as a decisive element throughout his previous work.
(full text on the exhibition page)