Venue:KunstRaum Mitte Berlin
Auguststraße 21
10117 Berlin
At the end of October, Kunst Raum Mitte will present various methods of researching and collecting that combine archives and performances. The focus is on the materials of galerie weisser elefant – and the affects and emotions that can be associated with them.
With Anna Zett (research residency), Lissy Willberg together with the Class for Performative Arts at the HGB Leipzig, Isabel Lewis & Yon Natalie Mik
Bye Bye BeginningRitual Association and Talk with Anna Zett and Guests
25 October 2024, 7 pm
As part of her research residency, Anna Zett has been working with archive materials of the galerie weisser elefant since September. The artist is focusing on the last years of the GDR, when the gallery was an important place for performance, installation and artistic experimentation. With reference to the municipal gallery’s institutional restart under the name Kunst Raum Mitte, Zett raises the question of transgenerational handover of experience: “Where to put it, where does it come from? In the middle, no origin in sight. Beginning – middle – end – beginning. What happened? The ritual doesn’t repeat itself. Bye bye is gathering in the present.”
At the end of her research, Anna Zett invites a few actors of the years 1987–1990 onto the playing field of Resonanz – Post-Socialist Group Improvisation – a participatory format she developed in 2020/21 in collaboration with the performer and choreographer Hermann Heisig and a group of co-reseachers, among them Ute Waldhausen. For this occasion the game will change its rules. Ritual associations that have emerged in Anna Zett’s research will be performed, experienced and discussed by herself and her guests. Everyone present is invited to participate physically, as well as to make use of the conversational playing positions.
Guests: Rainer Görß, Hermann Heisig, Ulrike Stöhring, Ute Waldhausen
ELEFANTPerformative Exhibition with Lissy Willberg in cooperation with the Class for Performative Arts at the HGB Leipzig (Isabel Lewis)
27 October 2024, 3 & 4 pm
How can an institution address its history and what methods can be used to approach, explore and expand upon alternative narratives? Students in the Class for Performative Arts of Isabel Lewis and Lissy Willberg at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig have been exploring these questions since the beginning of the 2024 summer semester.
As part of their research process, the students presented ELEFANT in June 2024 at the experimental residency institution Callie’s in Berlin-Wedding. As a form of open rehearsal and performative investigation, ELEFANT opened a window onto the ongoing research process. How can artistic research consciously focus on affects, and what could this achieve? How can historical references, fragmentary stories, and ephemera be handled with both care and playfulness? What resonances do students find with the Permanente Kunstkonferenz (Permanent Art Conference), a performance festival held at galerie weisser elefant in 1989?
On October 27, the students will continue to pursue these shared and tested methodologies and present their research at Kunst Raum Mitte.
With: Adam Harfouch, Andolie Marguerite, Asya Volodina, Kevin Heather Koen, Juli Winterstein zusammen mit Isabel Lewis und Lissy Willberg.
Affective ArchivesTalk with Isabel Lewis and Yon Natalie Mik
27 October 2024, 6 pm
From left: Isabel Lewis (Photo: Mathilde Agius), Yon Natalie Mik (Photo: Rina Nakano)
Are archives spaces of affect? What can research look like that questions its own standards - and instead turns everything that defies standards of documentation and classification into a method? In an exchange with Agnieszka Roguski and Natalie Keppler (Artistic Directors Kunst Raum Mitte), the artists Isabel Lewis and Yon Natalie Mik talk about performance art in relation to archival processes–and discuss the impossibility of archiving performance on the one hand, and the possibilities of dealing with it artistically on the other. They will discuss the relationship between affects, feelings, subjective experiences and supposedly objective forms of historiography, as well as the moments of protest that accompany them.
Admission to all events is free of charge. More information about the program at
www.kunstraummitte.berlin
