VideoNow!
Dec. 04, 2005 - Feb. 7, 2006
White Trash Contemporary, Ost-West-Str. 56, Hamburg 22457
Opening: Dec. 03, 7 - 10 pm
White
Trash Contemporary presents for the grand opening of its
new location in Hamburg VideoNow!
The exhibition “VideoNow!” is dedicated to new
video art from young international artists and will pay
hommage to some pioneers in the field. The selected videos
represent White Trash Contemporary’s overall mission
to foster works that push the envelope, cross bounderies
and move away from established positions. The artists range
from art school graduates to seasoned video masters who
were already featured in exhibitions in the US, Europe and
Asia.
Alex McQuilkin, a young artist from New York, creates
videos where moonfaced grunge girls are posing with their
slitted wrists in front of a mirror, caressing hand guns or
dancing ecstatically to heavy rock music. It’s all
about teenage sex, female jealousy, masocism and addiction
to prescription drugs.
The latest works of Bucher & Kopp (Willi Bucher und
Ralf Kopp), German artists wellknown through numerous
international exhibitions and represented in major museum
collections, revolves around strange microcosmic worlds and
glass blocks.
Mariana Vassilevas Video-Loop “Jumping Man”
(2004) shows a business man in a black suit perpetually
turning somersaults. With this minimal invasive theme the
artist from Bulgaria rises existential questions about
success and failure, obedience and freedom.
As a special tribute to White Trash Contemporary’s
own roots and the roots of experimental video art we will
also present “Media Burn” (1975), a
groundbreaking work by the legendary US video activists Ant
Farm. In a subversive public performance on Fourth of July
1975 they drove a tuned-up Chadillac through a pyramid of
burning TV sets . This media critical intervention caused a
sensation in the United States and set the tone for
numerous artist groups following in their footsteps.
One of them is Expander, a free floating group of young
Berlin video artists, whose members get together in
different formation for different projects. Seven of them
collaborated for the short film “Laxyl
intensiv” (2005), which was nominated as a winner of
the “36 Hours” video competion this fall in
Germany. The explosive, yet humorous work plays with
domestic rituals and common rules of good home cooking.
Lilli & Lola (Lilli Kuschel und Lola Göller) stage
provocative scenes at the local furniture discounter for
their video “Weiche Spalten hart gebumst”
(furniture porn, 2005). The esthetic is lent from real porn
productions and staged sex scenes in public. At the same
time they question the emptiness of our consumer culture.
In their multi screen video work “Kaufhof”
(2005) Mikko Gaestel & Lilli Kuschel visualize the
apocalyptic space of a partly gutted yet still functioning
department store in East Berlin. The motif of multible
escalators produces the impression of a psychological
“horror vacui”.
One of the highlights of the vernissage will be Nik Novaks
DJ performance with his “Mobile Booster”, a
tuned-up getto blaster with integrated video beamer (Moritz
Stumm) on wheels. The multi media artist from Berlin
produces sonic landscapes and combines concepts of
performance, sound and video art.
As a special treat for the celebration of our new space the
Mobile Blues Club (MBC) will again open it’s doors
for White Trash Contemprory’s guests for a night of
‘micro clubbing’ in front of the gallery. What
began with a successful gig at Preview Art Fair in Berlin
has become a creative collaboration between MBC and the
gallery with the goal to find new connections, new
locations and new ideas for the arts.
***
White Trash Contemporary (WTC) was founded in New York in
2004 with the goal to organize a transatlantic artist
network. The gallery wants to foster exchange among
emerging and underrepresented artists and give them an
opportunity to present their work in public. WTC sees
itself as an international platform trying to help find
exhibition space, organize shows, get press coverage and
nurture the artists’ careers in important art centers
in America and Europe.
Artists List:
Ant
Farm
-Doug Michels
-Chip Lord
-Curtis Schreier
Willi Bucher
Mikko Gaestel
Expander
-Mikko Gaestel
-Lola Göller
-Rasso Hilber
-Lilli Kuschel
-Daniel Offermann
-Heiko Tubbesing
-Ben Roth
Ralf
Kopp
Lilli&Lola
-Lilli Kuschel
-Lola Göller
Nik
Nowak
Alex McQuilkin
Moritz Stumm
Mariana Vassileva