Zeitgenössische Kunst * Köln Contemporary Art * Cologne

La Chose presents SPIRITS - 23 contemporary positions on the inexplicable With: Kathleen Alisch, Marc Brandenburg, Claudia Dorfmüller, Shannon Finley, Sid Gastl, Lola Göller, Rama Gottfried, Constantin Hartenstein, Hideaki Idetsuki, Seungyoun Lee, Theo Ligthart, Lilli&Lola, Antje Majewski, Alex Neuschäfer, Aleksandar Pertemov, Sophia Pompéry, Sophie Reinhold, Julien Rouvroy, Benjamin Rubloff, Betti Scholz, Juliane Solmsdorf, Moritz Stumm, Imke Wagener Opening: 23.10.2009, 7 pm Exhibition: 24.10. - 27.10.2009, 12 pm – 8 pm Stadtbad Wedding, Gerichstr. 65, Berlin www.lachoseprojects.com LA CHOSE The group exhibition Spirits is organised and curated by La chose, an artists' collective established in 2009, whose main objective is to show art in unusual spaces, independently from commercial galleries and cultural institutions, as well as to bring together artists from different backgrounds and generations. The collective is temporarily composed of Julien Rouvroy, Betti Scholz, Lola Göller and Bejamin Rubloff, but as La chose does not define itself as a permanent institution it is understood that the constellation may vary according to ideas and project. SPIRITS Spirits will take place in the Stadtbad Wedding: built at the beginning of the 20th century, this former public swimming pool and bathing house has been lying dormant for over the past 8 years. The Stadtbad provides La Chose with the ideal location for their first group exhibition, as it translates their interest in presenting shows where atmosphere and dynamics thrive from the interplay between artworks and their sites of exposition, into reality. Due to its rough, labyrinthine character, this peculiar building provides an unsettling backdrop to the pieces, prompting the spectator to not only view the exhibited artworks in terms of their intrinsic qualities, but to also become aware of their multifarious references to the surrounding environment. The 1600 m² location encompasses a vast diversity of spaces, ranging from 2 m² to 400 m², in which paintings, photographs, drawings, videos and installations are displayed. Rather than utilise every available free surface, the organisers of the exhibition felt it was important to leave some blank spaces in order to retain the authenticity of the location. The curatorial position does not bear on a concept to overly guide or direct the viewer—the emphasis rather falls on a thoughtful selective process so far as the choice of artists, works and location is concerned. There is an open dialogue between the artworks presented by La chose in Spirits as well as with the space in which they are exhibited and the title of the exhibition, which invokes various associations, encompassing ghosts to ancestors to inebriation. Tracing the edges of the odd and the obscure, the fictitious and the real and the dreamt and the remembered, the works presented in Spirits offer explorations of themes such as Otherness, the phenomenological and temporal.

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