Radical Receptionist* II
22.10.–19.11.2024
Radical Receptionist (RR) will be back at the HGB gallery between mid-October and mid-November. For those who don't know her yet: RR is a special character whose name says it all. Etymologically derived from “radical” (lat. radicalis, “to go to the root or to the extreme”) and “reception” (lat. receptio, "to receive"), RR refers to a host who unconditionally includes by giving in excess. Whoever comes is welcome: Because the RR is radically inviting and mediating, her actions move beyond questions of representation, which is why she does not produce a single coherent image but is rather a connective tissue between constantly shifting parts. She communicates, welcomes, cares for her guests and for the sum of all the agents that make up the gallery space: the lighting, the bar, the free coffee, the plug-play station (technology for music, screenings, talks), the mobile walls and furniture, and so on. RR does this by enabling others to be affected by her hospitality.
RR is also a format developed by Isabel Lewis and Ilse Lafer, which, based on an open score, invites teaching formats (seminars, class reunions), events (screenings, talks, get-togethers, performances, rehearsals, parties, or other forms of encounter) to take place in an open space and share them with others. If you accept the invitation, you also take on the role of the Radical Receptionist: you invite, welcome and ensure an open form of encounter and social interaction with your guests in the hgb gallery.
Anyone can be a Radical Receptionist: students, teachers, staff, alumn*ae and anyone can be a guest as well. Write to reception@hgb-leipzig.de if you would like to be a host (RR) in the gallery for two hours, an evening or several days with one of the above-mentioned formats.
The gallery of the Academy of Fine Art sees itself as a membrane between the interior and exterior of the institution. The gallery's aim is to supplement and extend both the teaching contents and practices of the various departments as well as making a contribution to current inquiries in the arts, thereby establishing connections between internal and external discussions and - being situated in the centre of the academy - offering a social and discursive place for carrying out such debates. In the framework of the academy's specific capabilities, the gallery affords students, lecturers, invited artists, curators and theoreticians an experimental and reflective form of exhibition practice that can incorporate, beyond the presentations themselves, the active involvement with the exhibition and the reworking and reformulating discursive material.