Visions of Exchange
Mercedes-Benz Art Scope Award 2009–2017
f.l.: Benedikt Partenheimer, Taro Izumi
Taro Izumi
f.l.: Benedikt Partenheimer, Eva Berendes (© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018), Jan Scharrelmann, Menja Stevenson
f.l.: Menja Stevenson (© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018), Rita Hensen, Eva Berendes (© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018)
f.l.: Eva Berendes (© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018), Jan Scharrelmann, Menja Stevenson (© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018)
Hiroe Saeki
f.l.: Hiroe Saeki, Rita Hensen
f.l.: Eva Berendes, Rita Hensen, Hiroe Saeki
f.l.: Meiro Koizumi, Eva Berendes, Menja Stevenson
f.l.: Meiro Koizumi, Eva Berendes, Menja Stevenson
f.l.: Satoshi Ono, Jan Scharrelmann, Hiroe Saeki, Tokihiro Satō
f.l.: Tokihiro Satō, Eva Berendes (© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018), Ryosuke Imamura
f.l.: Eve Berendes (© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018), Ryosuke Imamura
Hans-Georg Gaul, Berlin
The exhibition “Visions of Exchange” presents the last eleven scholarship recipients of the “Mercedes-Benz Art Scope” artist-in-residence program. This art and culture program established in 1991 by Mercedes-Benz Japan began as support for Japanese artists with a stay in Monflanquin, in southwest France, near the Pyrenees. Thanks to a cooperative agreement with the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection, Stuttgart / Berlin, the program has reoriented itself since 2004 and established itself as a Japanese-German cultural exchange. A three-month stay in the cities of Tokyo and Berlin allows the artists selected by the jury to deepen their knowledge of the host country’s culture, to make new contacts, and to develop artistic projects and ideas from the impressions they have gained. Exhibitions in the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo and the Mercedes-Benz Contemporary in Berlin present the scholarship recipients and thus a selection of the contemporary art scene in each host country.
The focus is on works that have emerged from the program, complemented by works that permit insight into the origins of the work. Very different in their media, forms, and aesthetics, these works reflect the individual perception of the initially foreign and the impulses and insights that arise from the impressions gained: in approaching the new by gazing through the camera; in the artistic appropriation and transformation of found materials and phenomena; intrinsic to the works, in relying on the traditions of abstract imagery.
Eva Berendes (D), Rita Hensen (D), Ryosuke Imamura (J), Taro Izumi (J), Meiro Koizumi (J), Satoshi Ono (J), Benedikt Partenheimer (D), Hiroe Saeki (J), Tokihiro Satō (J), Jan Scharrelmann (D), Menja Stevenson (D)
Curators: Renate Wiehager and Wiebke Hahn
Downloads
Events
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-Mercedes-Benz Contemporary Berlin
Performance: "NippleJesus" by Nick Hornby
Production: Marek S. Bednarsky
Dramaturgy: Anna Gubiani
With: Gerhard Polacek
The production is a cooperation between the Württembergische Landesbühne Esslingen and Villa Merkel with support from the Esslinger Kunstverein e.V.
The performance is held in German language.
Please register by email at nadine.henrich@daimler.com
Because the number of participants is limited, the date of receipt determines eligibility. Participation is free
Dave works as a museum guard. Before that, he worked as a doorman and bouncer in a nightclub. At an exhibition of modern art, he has to watch over a room that only people 18 and over can enter. This is because the piece "NippleJesus" is a representation of Jesus on the cross, but it is also a collage of female nipples. At first, Dave is shocked and does his job only with great reluctance. But when he meets the artist in person one day, he changes his attitude and begins protecting the artwork from enraged attackers – he even protects it from his wife. Nonetheless, the work falls victim to an attack. At the end, Dave has to recognize that he is part of a staged process.
Gerhard Polacek comes from Vienna but has lived in Esslingen since 1983. Theater studies at the University of Vienna. Since 1990, he has worked as an independent actor in theater (including with the Württembergische Landesbühne Esslingen, Zimmertheater Tübingen, Theater "tri-bühne", Theater Rampe in Stuttgart, Prinzregententheater in Munich), in film, and on television (including Polizeiruf 110, Großstadtrevier, Unter Verdacht, Romy, Tatort, Vier Frauen und ein Todesfall, Unter Tannen).
The British writer Nick Hornby (*1957) is one of the most well-known contemporary representatives of pop literature. His novels "Fever Pitch", "High Fidelity", and "About a Boy" (screen adaptation in 2002) quickly became cult favorites. The short story "NippleJesus" was published in the anthology "Speaking with the Angel" in 2000 and has been performed in many theaters with great success.
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-Mercedes-Benz Contemporary Berlin
Thematic guided tour: Souvenirs – Following artistic traces
Eva Berendes, Rita Hensen, Hiroe Saeki, Taro Izumi
Art as well as the journey are privileged places of foreign experience. Both result in unforeseen things, inasmuch as they overwhelm, stimulate and strain the senses, perhaps overwork, but at the same time incite curiosity that challenges perception and thinking. During their scholarship stays in Tokyo and Berlin, the artists used their impressions and experiences to develop artistic strategies that give them their very own view of the city and its history. In addition to motivic bonds, the guided tour will also focus on formal aesthetic references to traditional techniques.
The tour will be in German language.
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-Mercedes-Benz Contemporary Berlin
Thematic guided tour: Blind Spots – Invisible Memories
Meiro Koizumi, Benedikt Partenheimer
In light of historical catastrophes, various works in the current exhibition reflect on traumatic memories as stratifications and compresses of personal and collective disasters. In his theatrical-absurd video work Defect in Vision, Koizumi compiles a complex aesthetic of unrestrained history and creates an ambiguous vision of the past. Against the background of the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima, which shaped Partenheimer's stay, his surreal photographs reveal not only a criticism of consumer behavior, but also of energy policy.
The tour will be in German language.
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-Mercedes-Benz Contemporary Berlin
Lecture on Japanese video art and film screening featuring Meiro Koizumi et al.
We begin our introduction to Japanese video art with the experimental film Xénogénèse by Akihiko Morishita. Afterwards, the video installation Defect in Vision, shown in our current exhibition, and other works by Meiro Koizumi will be presented in detail. The evening will focus on references to role models in film in form and content as well as on historical, political, and aesthetical aspects.
Friederike Horstmann is a research assistant at the film studies seminar at the Freie Universität of Berlin. Her writings on cinema and art appear in the film columns of the Perlentaucher and Cargo Film/Medien/Kultur magazines as well as in other publications.
Participation is free. Registration is not required.
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-Mercedes-Benz Contemporary Berlin
Thematic guided tour: Symphonies of the Big Cities - Urban Landscapes
Taro Izumi, Tokihiro Satō, Jan Scharrelmann, Menja Stevenson
The starting point of many of the works shown in the current exhibition are observations and experiences that deal with the urban space of Tokyo and Berlin and condense them into memorable images. By re-photographing individual locations in Tokyo 25 years later, Satō carries out a precise study of the transience. Presented as diptychs, the photographs contrast the massive transformation of the urban landscape. From the process of urban exploration, Izumi has developed an installative video work, which operates on the intersection of reality and fiction. Jan Scharrelmann's work frequently develops from contrasts, ambivalences, and contradictions. This affects the materials and formal decisions as well as the relationship to the surrounding space and possible readings for the viewer.The window piece by Menja Stevenson superimposes images of Tokyo, her home town Stuttgart and the surrounding of Haus Huth and thus formulates multiple viewpoints.
The tour will be in German language.
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-Mercedes-Benz Contemporary Berlin
Thematic guided tour: Blind Spots – Invisible Memories
Meiro Koizumi, Benedikt Partenheimer
In light of historical catastrophes, various works in the current exhibition reflect on traumatized memories as stratifications and compresses of personal and collective disasters. In his theatrical-absurd video work Defect in Vision, Koizumi compiles a complex aesthetic of unrestrained history and creates an ambiguous vision of the past. Against the background of the nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima, which shaped Partenheimer's stay, his surreal photographs reveal not only a criticism of consumer behavior, but also of energy policy.
The tour will be in German language.
Publications
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Forwards 08
Mercedes-Benz Awards for Contemporary Art in Germany, Japan, South Africa and the USA.
Berlin, 2008 -
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Exhibitions
Forwards 08
Daimler Awards for Contemporary Art in Japan, South Africa and USA
Art Scope 2005/2006 – Interface Complex
Contemporary Art from Japan und Germany
Art Scope 2004. Daimler Japan
12 Years of Engagement for Young Japanese Art
Mercedes-Benz Art Scope 2015-2017: Wandering to Wonder
A Cooperation between Mercedes-Benz Japan
and the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection, Stuttgart/Berlin
and the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection, Stuttgart/Berlin