09.02.2009

Press Information | Carnival Within

“Carnival Within. An Exhibition Made in America” shows sculptures, installations, paintings, photographs and videos of 20 American and international artists from the US belonging to different generations. “Carnival Within” is a staged funfair with eccentric art and over-sized works in a 3000m2 space at the Uferhallen in Berlin-Wedding. It deals with the American culture of sensation, overstatement and parody.

An Exhibition Made in America

In their works, the artists deal with Pop Culture and its carnivalesque expressions, such as Disneyland, Las Vegas or Hollywood. Behind loud, dazzling and often striking surfaces the artworks touch upon issues of utopianism; faith; racial, gender and environmental concerns; consumerism and violence among many others. In other words: Excess, exaggeration, and free-spirited playfulness are intrinsic to this carnivalesque art, but so too is thoughtfulness, social awareness, and keen political engagement.

DISCOVER US! is organised by the curators of the exhibition―Sabine Russ, Gregory Volk and Uta Grundmann―and the jazzwerkstatt Berlin-Brandenburg e.V. A programme of American Jazz and a series of readings by American experimental poets, curated by Rob Fittermann/New York University and Katrin Gersdorf/Kennedy Institute of the Freie Universität Berlin will compliment the exhibition.

A catalogue is published by the Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg with photographs of the exhibition by Arwed Messmer and texts by Gregory Volk, Sabine Russ, Uta Grundmann, Thomas Irmer, Jed Rasula and Martina Siebert.


The exhibition will include the following artists:
Janine Antoni (video); Joe Amrhein (painting installation); Tracey Baran (photography); Sanford Biggers (video/sculpture); Laura Bruce (drawing); Chamecki-Lerner (Rosane Chamecki, Phil Harder, Andrea Lerner) (video); Anne Chu (sculpture); Spencer Finch (installation/neon sculpture); David Herbert (sculpture/installation); Joan Jonas (video); Nina Katchadourian (banner/photograph), Yvette Mattern (light installation); Karyn Olivier (sculpture); Joyce Pensato (painting), Peggy Preheim (drawing); William Pope.L (video installation); Nadine Robinson (light installation); Lawrence Weiner (wall text)


More Informationr: www.discover-us.org


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