Tag: becoming-animal

Animals on my mind

Julia Klemm, Zuza Piekoszewska

21.10 – 6.11.2022

Lothringer 13 Studio, Lothringer Str. 13, 81667 München

 

 

Julia Klemm, o. T., 2022, ceramics, pigment, 16 x 17 x 35 cm

When I try to recall something or other, I do not immediately think of animals, though perhaps I should. I think of things that happened and other things that happened before that: points on an ever distant timeline. A line of evolution, of successful pairings, of inherited traits. But what about all those other things I don’t remember? Unclear, awkward pairings, stolen encounters in the night? Different species, no offspring, yet also a closeness and an intimacy. 

 

Animals on my mind is the second of GiG Munich’s ‘Re-collection’ series of exhibitions at Lothringer 13 Studio, featuring the work of Julia Klemm and Zuza Piekoszewska, in collaboration with Lectwo, Poland. 

Julia Klemm (*1983 in Backnang) lives and works in Munich. 2010 she began her art studies at the AdBK Munich with Prof. Norbert Prangenberg and graduated 2017 as a master student with Markus Karstieß. In 2018 she received a scholarship from the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture, Science and Art for a six-month stay at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. She has exhibited in Munich, Cologne, Düsseldorf and internationally, in New Jersey, Rome and Beirut. Klemm is represented in the collection of contemporary art of the Federal Republic of Germany and is currently participating in a group exhibition in the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn in 2022.

Zuza Piekoszewska (*1996) completed an BFA in Photography at the University of the Arts Poznan and a MFA in Fine Art Media in the Szczecin Art Academy. At Łęctwo Poznań she had solo exhibitions ‘You are a little soul carrying about a corpse’ in 2020, and ‘Ready to hatch’ in 2019. Her recent group exhibitions include ‘The Discomfort of Evening’, Zachęta, Warsaw, 2022, ‘Material fatigue’ at the 17th International Triennial of Tapestry in Łódź, 2022,  ‘We breathe the remains of everything that was’ organised by GiG Munich and Łęctwo at Lothringer 13 Studio, Munich, 2022, ’The earth is flat again’ at the Museum of Art in Łódź, 2021 and ‘Lebenswelt’ at the Bovisamare Via Mercantini, Milan, 2021. 

 

Animals on my mind 

Wenn ich versuche, mich an etwas zu erinnern, denke ich nicht sofort an Tiere, obwohl ich das vielleicht sollte. Ich denke an Dinge, die passiert sind, und andere Dinge, die davor passiert sind: Punkte auf einer immer weiter entfernten Zeitlinie. Eine Linie der Evolution, der erfolgreichen Paarungen, der vererbten Eigenschaften. Aber was ist mit all den anderen Dingen, an die ich mich nicht erinnere? Unklare, ungeschickte Paarungen, gestohlene Begegnungen in der Nacht? Verschiedene Spezies, keine Nachkommen, aber auch eine Nähe und Intimität. 

 

Animals on my mind ist die zweite Ausstellung der Reihe “Re-collection” von GiG Munich im Lothringer 13 Studio, in der die Arbeiten von Julia Klemm und Zuza Piekoszewska gezeigt werden. 

Julia Klemm (*1983 in Backnang) lebt und arbeitet in München. Sie beginnt 2010 ihr Kunststudium an der AdBK München bei Prof. Norbert Prangenberg und macht 2017 als Meisterschülerin bei Markus Karstieß ihren Abschluss. 2018 erhält sie ein Stipendium des Bayerischen Staatsministeriums für Bildung und Kultur, Wissenschaft und Kunst für einen sechsmonatigen Aufenthalt an der Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. Sie stellte bisher in München, Köln, Düsseldorf sowie international u. a. in New Jersey, Rom und Beirut aus.Klemm ist in der Sammlung zeitgenössischer Kunst der Bundesrepublik Deutschlandvertreten und 2022 an einer Gruppenausstellung in der Bundeskunsthalle Bonn beteiligt.

Zuza Piekoszewska (*1996) absolvierte einen BFA in Fotografie an der Universität der Künste Poznan und einen MFA in Fine Art Media an der Kunstakademie Szczecin. Im Łęctwo Poznań hatte sie die Einzelausstellungen “You are a little soul carrying about a corpse” im Jahr 2020 und “Ready to hatch” im Jahr 2019. Zu ihren jüngsten Gruppenausstellungen gehören “The Discomfort of Evening”, Zachęta, Warschau, 2022, “Material fatigue” auf der 17. Internationalen Triennale der Tapisserie in Łódź, 2022,  “Wir atmen die Reste von allem, was war”, organisiert von GiG Munich und Łęctwo im Studio Lothringer 13, München, 2022, “Die Erde ist wieder flach” im Kunstmuseum in Łódź, 2021 und “Lebenswelt” im Bovisamare Via Mercantini, Mailand, 2021.

GiG air – more

This year is the year GiG Munich becomes nomadic as GiG air. 

When I say ‘circumstances force GiG to become nomadic’, I mean it in a very specific way. The last series of exhibitions at GiG Munich in its former location, ‘Thinking Nature’ were in large part a response to Deleuze and Guattari’s chapter ‘1730: Becoming-Intense, Becoming- Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible’ in ‘A Thousand Plateaus’, which I was reading at the time. I was interested in how, in this chapter, they introduced the idea of becoming through the discussion of the naturalist and his approach to classifying nature, either through the establishment of series when comparing outward resemblances, or when comparing interior workings of living organisms, the establishment of inner structures. Deleuze and Guattari oppose to this naturalist approach not only to the kind of symbiotic relation, such as between the wasp and the orchid, that is without offspring and therefore also outside the filial relations of evolution, but also to the becoming-animal of creatures like vampires or werewolves, seemingly fictional yet having nothing to do with an imaginary required of comparing and assessing visual similarities between species. There is a suggestion here that becoming-animal constitutes an alternative relation to nature, or rather a bond that isn’t a relation, a relation without relation, because without a recognisable subject and a distinct object. Instead of a molar organisation, Deleuze and Guattari offer the intensities and speeds of the molecular. The exhibition series ‘Thinking Nature’ aimed to explore the impact of man’s relation to nature has on thought. What kind of thought would there be, if this relation between man and nature would be different?

The project however neglected one crucial aspect of this approach to nature, and that is politics. About two months ago a video work by Franz Wanner alerted me to the politics involved in discussions of the molecular. His work was about Germany’s Erinnerungskultur and the problems associated with it. The way in which specifically businesses acknowledge their Nazi past, results in a production of memory that could be understood in Deleuze and Guattari’s molar terms. For Deleuze and Guattari memory, and not just because of its relation to the imaginary, is inherently molar, because of it follows a point-based arborescent system. We think of memory like history generally: as a string of points, going from past to present, each point some event that we can connect to another. Indeed, we organise history in a way not dissimilar to how the naturalist does his charts, in timelines, with branches breaking off in different directions at significant points. But to truly make history involves anti-memory, a break from arborescence in the production of a molecular lineal system. It involves creation, the making of a new reality that then history can only re-contain. This is GiG’s new project: our cultural organisation of memory and how this relates to our organisation of nature. 

From the filial relationships of evolution timelines and the punctual system of memory it is but a step to the establishment of the state. The state of things, the status quo, is based on man. It is molar – molecular is the nomadic.  Deleuze and Guattaru frame their chapter on becoming on either end with the discussion of the war machine of nomadic origin and of different assemblage to the state apparatus. The war machine is what institutes change and this is why the state cannot appropriate it except as war. The war machine is the mutation the naturalist cannot contain. 

Every creation is brought about by the war machine. GiG air is GiG molecular, a mutant, a war machine. Watch this space.