Blade Memory II - eine Kooperation mit dem CCA Tel Aviv-Yafo

EXHIBITION TALK
ORY DESSAU & REBEKKA SEUBERT
2 JUNE 2022, 7 AM

We are looking forward to an exhibition talk within the exhibition Blade Memory II, presenting works by a young generation of artists from Israel: Ory Dessau talks with Rebekka Seubert about the temporary and impermanent, about doubt and the artistic approaches of a young generation of artists from Israel.
Ory Dessau (*1979, Tel Aviv) is an independent curator and writer based in Ghent and Brussels. He has collaborated with museums such as the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, S.M.A.K., Ghent, and Moderna Museet Malmö. In 2021 he curated Facing the Crowd: On and Around Lecture Performance at West, Den Haag. Dessau’s texts are regularly published in different art magazines such as Art Review, Flash Art, Mousse Magazine and Metropolis M.
Rebekka Seubert is the artistic director of Dortmunder Kunstverein and co-initiator of this project together with Nicola Trezzi, director of CCA Tel Aviv.

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PRESS PREVIEW
20 MAY 2022 11 AM

"We’re happy and excited to welcome you in Dortmunder Kunstverein’s future exhibition site for the press talk of our next exhibition on Friday, 20th of May!"

BLADE MEMORY II
21 MAY to 31 JULY 2022

Intro:

In the shell of the new premises of the Kunstverein, formerly used as an insurance office, the exhibition Blade Memory II pairs works by a young generation of artists from Israel with older ones from Europe.
Deserted office buildings now stand for a turning point in time: the ruins of the office architecture provide a space to look at the world in its status quo, to order it, to contextualise it. Rather than exaggerating and overwhelming, the sober setting in an arrangement of old office furniture allows the art to appear almost incidental, giving it a chance to reclaim its autonomy outside the spectacle.

Featuring works by Max Ernst, Avner Ben Gal, Marianne Berenhaut, among others, and a never-before-exhibited drawing by Dortmund-born Martin Kippenberger.

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Blade Memory evokes an aching memory, a memory that strikes to the heart. The exhibition examines the role of artists whose present is marked by the disenchantment that professionalisation, corporate branding and its architectures leave in the individual’s sense of agency. Since the 1970s, and increasingly since the New Economy era of the 1990s, the world has accelerated: densified inner cities leave little room for individual expression; the time economy of digitalisation increases global effectiveness, creating not less but more work for some and none for others.

The exhibition takes place in the shell of the new premises of the Dortmunder Kunstverein, formerly used as an insurance office. Through the pandemic, deserted office buildings now stand for a turning point in time: the ruins of the early 2000s office architecture provide a space to look at the world in its status quo, to order it, to contextualise it. Rather than exaggerating and overwhelming, the sober setting of this backdrop allows the art to appear almost incidental, giving it a chance to reclaim its autonomy outside the spectacle.

Blade Memory is an artist-curated exhibition in two independent chapters: The first was on view at CCA Tel Aviv-Yafo in 2021, and we are now pleased to present Blade Memory II at the new space of Dortmunder Kunstverein.

Curated by the artists Naama Arad, I. S. Kalter and Eran Nave, invited by Nicola Trezzi and Rebekka Seubert.