 |
Exhibition view, Hey Panopticon! Hey Asymmetry!, Schinkel Pavillon, 2018, Berlin
Photo: Jens Ziehe
|
CryptoKitties/Guile Gaspar
Celestial Cyber Dimension, (Kitty.127), 2018, CryptoKytty, hardware, wallet, display case, Dimension undefinable Courtesy Private Collection Photo: Hans-Georg Gaul Henrik Olesen Hey Panopticon! Hey Asymmetry! + Proof of Work curated by Simon Dennyin dialogue with Distributed Gallery, Harm Van Den Dorpel, Sarah Hamerman and Sam Hart, Kei Kreutler, Aude Launay and Anna-Lisa Scherfose. Schinkel Pavillon 8.9 - 21.12.2018 |
The future of the Society of Control is the link between the two exhibitions at the Schinkel Pavillon, “Oh Panopticon! Hey Asymmetry!” by Henrik Olesen Presented in the Pavilion and “Proof of Work - art/ cryptocurrency”, a group show curated by Simon Denny in dialogue with Distributed Gallery, Harm van den Dorpel, Sarah Hamerman and Sam Hart, Kei Kreutler, Aude Launay and Anna-Lisa Scherfose, presented in the crypt.
The two exhibition analyzes the same theme but head in two different directions.
Henrik Olesen, who is showing his works in Berlin after a long time of absence, is directly addressing the topic. “Proof of Works” seems to want to stretch the conditions of our economic society to its extreme consequences, offering the vision of its own limit.
The starting point of Olesen’s exhibition is the architectural organization of the Schinkel Pavillon that the artist explicitly associates to Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michael Foucault.
Institutions analyzed in Foucault’s book, like the prison, are organized in a way that there is one observer who has a privileged point of view and have the power to control a multiplicity of individuals. At the same time the structure of the Schinkel Pavillon is built to give a 360-degree control viewpoint on Berlin’s landscape.
Olesen plays over this connection to create a scenario where the game between viewer and viewed is constantly alterated.
In the entrance to the exhibition a wall is blocking the passage, it is the obstacle but also the mediator and the artwork to the view of the exhibition.
On the opposite side of the wall there is a series of colored boxes with a side in plexiglas. Inside the boxes there are differents printed papers with the same motives recurring in the show. On some of the windows, black canvas with printed quotations from Discipline and Punish or the title of the show are blocking the view of the landscape. Colored wood panels are placed on the floor in the middle of the room. On the top of it a collection of everydays food utilities coloured or black painted.
Olesen built an ambivalent structure. The freedom of seeing and knowing is constantly limited but at the same time this limitations are the conditions for us to see and know the reality.
 |
Referring to: The Master-Slave-Dialectic!, 2018
Plexiglass, glue
160 x 152 x 31 cm Unique Courtesy the artist and Galerie Buchholz Photo: Jens Ziehe |
 |
Exhibition view, Hey Panopticon! Hey Asymmetry!, Schinkel Pavillon, 2018, Berlin
Photo: Jens Ziehe
|
 |
Discipline and Punish, 2018
Silkscreen on MDF, acrylic paint 140 x 110 cm Unique Courtesy the artist and Galerie Buchholz Photo: Jens Ziehe |
 |
HEY PANOPTICON 1, 2018
Acrylic paint on MDF, plexiglas, inkjet print on transparent foil 69 x 50,5 x 7,5 cm Unique Courtesy the artist and Galerie Buchholz Photo: Jens Ziehe |
 |
The Discipline and Punish Box!, 2018
Cardboard, print on film
31 x 51 x 41 cm Unique Courtesy the artist and Galerie Buchholz Photo: Jens Ziehe |
 |
Box, 2018
Silkscreen on wood, acrylic paint, lacquer, inkjet print on paper, plexiglas 32 x 39 x 32 cm Unique Courtesy the artist and Galerie Buchholz Photo: Jens Ziehe |
The economical drift is at the center of the group show ”Proof of Work”, with works and projects by Cryptokitties, Aria Dean, Distributed Gallery, Harm Van den Dorpel, FOAM ( Ryan Kohn King, Ekaterina Zavyalova, Nick Axel and Kristoffer Josefsson), Sarah Herman and Sam Hart, Decentralized Autonomous Kunstverein ( Nick Koppenhagen and Wesley Simon, Kei Kreutler, Left Gallery ( Harm Van den Dorpel and Paloma Rodriguez Carrington ), Wayne Lloyd, Mark Lombardi, Jonas Lund, Rob Myres, Hayal Pozanti, Billy Rennekamp, Jason Rohrer, Miljohn Ruperto and Ulrik Helftoft, 0XΩ ( Avery Singer and Matt Liston ), Terra0 ( Paul Seidler, Paul Kolling and Max Hampshire ), with a conversation program by New Models ( Caroline Busta, Lil Internet, Daniel Keller ).
 |
FOAM (Ryan John King, Ekaterina Zavyalova, Nick Axel and Kristoffer
Josefsson)
Tropical Mining Station, 2017 Pneumatic membrane, cryptocurrency miner, plexiglas casing, plinth, fans Dimensions variable Courtesy the artists Photo: Hans-Georg Gaul |
The curators drew a rhizomatic structure to produce the exhibition. This structure repeat a system of Cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin. This exhibition is also a way for people like me, who is not so practical with the matter, to get closer to this topic. In this alternative economic system, a Proof of Work is a safety procedure to guarantee the value and the transparency of a currency. This is a decentralized, self-organized system based on a general consensus. And which aim to produce a new system of regulations where there is no third party do discriminate and define value.
Every artworks in the exhibition is at the same time re-cycling elements from the cryptocurrency system to transform it in art: the Chaos Machine, 2018 by Distributed Gallery is a machine who eats and burns EU money, changing it in a Bitcoins, that could be used to play music as a Jukebox; Tropical Mining Station, 2017 by FOAM (Ryan John King, Ekaterina Zavyalova, Nick Axel and Kristoffer Josefsson) is a huge balloon inflated by a cryptocurrency miner software; Harm van den Dorpel’s Nested Exchange Series is a group of drawings realized by an automated process created by the artist himself. A special mention goes to Celestial Cyber Dimension, (Kitty. 127), 2018 by CryptoKitties/Guile Gaspar that is described by the curatorial team as “one of the most notorious crossovers between an art context and a blockchain”. Cryptokitties is a blockchain based virtual game that became very popular in 2017 and was sold at a Christie’s auction for $ 140,000. The artwork shows a possible way to expand and innovate the channels of economical exchanges. Sam Hart and Sarah Hamerman selected a group of works for a section focused on the topic of secrecy which is extremely important in matter of cryptocurrency.
The extremely appealing exhibition crosses the path of an alternative economic system where freedom is accessible only in a cryptic way to the ones who can understand it.
Harm van den Dorpel
Distributed Gallery
Chaos Machine, 2018
Various material
192 x 52 x 52 cm
Courtesy Distributed Gallery
 |
CryptoKitties/Guile Gaspar
Celestial Cyber Dimension, (Kitty. 127), 2018 Detail Courtesy Private Collection Photo: Hans-Georg Gaul |
 |
Wayne Lloyd
How We Won the War on Socialism, 2000 Oil and acrylic on canvas 216 x 164.5 x 5.5 cm Courtesy the artist Photo: Hans-Georg Gaul |
 |
Billy Rennekamp
Leather Spheres, 2013 Leather, thread, and rubber mounted with The Ball ClawTM Dimensions variable Courtesy the artist Photo: Hans-Georg Gaul |
 |
0xΩ (Matt Liston and Avery Singer)
Dogewhal, 2018
3D print, stainless steel 43 x 28 x 43 cm Courtesy the artists and Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin Photo: Hans-Georg Gaul |
 |
Exhibition view, Proof of Work, Schinkel Pavillon, 2018, Berlin
Photo: Hans-Georg Gaul
|
 |
Exhibition view
Proof of Work Schinkel Pavillon, 2018, Berlin Photo: Hans-Georg Gaul |
Lammer Asbestus, 2018
Multi layered UV prints with white channel between CNC-cut plexiglass, packaging
material, screw system, 100 x 100 x 3 cm
Courtesy the artist and Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam
Photo: Hans-Georg Gaul
