THE SECRET IDENTITY
– An exhibition of four international artists in an exploration of the creation of identity and ethnicity.
On the soundsystem for the opening: post colonial house and noisy vinyl with DJ WUCHTBRUMME vs ABIDJANINSKI (Girl Monster/Pudel)!
1 Sept–27 Sept
Opening 01.09.2009 18:00
Project Dice at Galerie Kleefeld
Stresemannstrasse 110, Hamburg
Thu – Sat 12:00 – 20:00, or call or email for appointment.
paul@paulsteen.se+49 (0)176 6258 1706
"Virtual Jihadi", Wafaa Bilal, 2008
WAFAA BILAL (Najaf/Iraq, 1966)
Virtual Jihadi is a first person shooter where the player plays a figure with Wafaa Bilal’s own face. At first fighting alongside american forces in Iraq, the player eventually switches sides to become an al-Qaida suicide bomber attacking George W Bush in the final level. Wafaaf Bilal was born and went to artschool in Iraq, but has been living and working in the US since 18 years. Fervently against violence, Wafaa Bilal sheds a light on propaganda and creation of stereotypes in games with his work. Virtual Jihadi is a graphic modification of “Quest for Bush” , an al-Qaida recruitment game, which itself was a graphic modification of the bluntly xenophobic american game “Quest for Saddam”.
The game was censored, shut down, when it was shown at an exhibition at a university in Troy, NY last year, because of mislead protests that it was promoting extremism.
Wafaa Bilal is perhaps best known for the work Domestic Tension from 2007, when he enclosed himself in a room for a month, working and living with a surveillance camera and a paintballgun directed by visitors to his homepage. During this month Wafaa Bilal was shot 60.000 times by people from 130 countries.
"The Obscured Room", Cecilia Germain at Massma, Ronneby, Sweden, 2007
CECILIA GERMAIN (Uppsala/Sweden, 1974)
The work Blue Vein Society is a ficticious archive of a secret society of the same name that has in fact existed. Following the abolition of slavery in the US, light skinned african-americans, or mulattos, of a certain social status, came together to form exclusive social clubs restricted to those who were light skinned enough to show blue veins on the inside of the arms. Coupled with elements of spiritualism and alchemy, the ideology behind the Blue Vein Society stressed the importance of perfection through mixing.
The work Blue Vein Society is one of Cecilia Germain’s largest bodies of works, requiring days of the viewer to take in everything from blue-colored blood samples to letters on the metaphysical importance of being of mixed blood.
"Michael Jackson's Eyes", Sebastian Franzén, 2009
SEBASTIAN FRANZÉN (Karlskrona/Sweden, 1973)
Michael Jackson’s Eyes is a series of digital drawings featuring the recently deceased superstar. He is present only as a pair of repeated eyes, yet we have seen them so often that there is no mistaking them. In Sebastian Franzén’s maniacal drawings, the most banale and overexposed pictures and phrases get lifted out of their context, brutally colorized, cut, pasted, repositioned and multiplied until they reveal their own absurdity. His ability to see and pick out everyday messages that most of us have become blind to allows the viewer to rediscover the codes of the world that surrounds us.
Sebastian Franzén is also known for his performances under the alias Mr Perfect.
Poster for Kristallen, Danilo Stankovic
DANILO STANKOVIC (Kalmar/Sweden, 1981)
Kristallen is a club in Malmö, Sweden, for experimental music and performance. Drawing on imagery from ethnography, romanticism, psychedelica and spiritualism, Danilo Stankovic made a series of striking posters for the club that are here presented for the first time in the original. Complementing these are a series of delicate watercolor paintings exploring mashed up images of balkan folkloristic costumes, scandinavian national romantic landscapes and psychedelic patterns reminiscent of indonesian batik.
Project Dice is an exhibition program at Galerie Kleefeld. The program is curated by swedish artist and journalist Paul Steen and offers young international contemporary art.
Project Dice’s openings are planned to coincide with openings every other month at Fitting Forward concept store next door.
Paul Steen would like to thank Generation Digitale for generous technical support for this show.
For more information and hi-res press images, contact
paul@paulsteen.se or call 0176 6258 1706.
And while you're here we also warmly recommend a visit to the shop next door and the grand opening of the entirely newly redecorated and reassembled collection of the concept store Fitting Forward:
FITTING FORWARD OPENING 01.09.2009 18:00
Dies mal wird es richtig VORLAUT, wenn es heißt:
Auf die Plätze, fertig, Vorbild! Jetzt geht's ab ab - ab, denn wir gehen über das normale Maß hinaus, begeistern uns für Superlativen, Superhelden und Superstars und feiern uns im MegaHeroSuperAlarm. Wir sind Fan von Fans haben und sein. Und wir sind Fans von Euch. (vor allem wenn ihr kommt:)
Mit dabei das SAGENHAFTE MEGA internationale Label BERNHARD WILLHELM (Paris). Er zeigt EXKLUSIV in Hamburg seine BRANDNEUE Winterkollektion und ausgewählte SUPERHERO Outfits aus vergangenen Kollektionen und es gibt andere DESIGN-GRANATEN wie ANA.D.Deertz, Anntian, Starstyling, Bitten Stetter, Jutta Südbeck, Aleksandra Wisniewska, Missgeschick...und weiter geht´s ab, NAT-2 haut VON DEN SOCKEN mit ihren bannenbrechenden Schuhstyles. MAX GRUETER, einer DER Schweizer Cross-Media Künstler und Spezialisten für ANTIHELDEN begeistert mit seiner gleichnamigen stark limitierten Edition.
Aber damit nicht genug. EKLATANT, Enrico Nagel, bringt den Raum zum kochen mit seinen GIGANTISCHEN Raumcollagen.
MEHR?...Nur Mut und kommt. Held sein tut gut.
BITTEN & JUTTA
www.fittingforward.comDer neue Hamburger Themen-Shop der vorlaut
zeigt wovon man leise hört.
Alle 2 Monate Eröffnung einer neuen Welt:
01.09.2009 Auf die PlŠtze, fertig, Vorbild
01.11.2009 Farbdemo - eine Kopf-bis-Fu§revolution
01.02.2010 Gesellschaftsspielverderber
Stresemannstrasse 110
offen Do - Sa 12:00 - 20:00
