abSTIMMUNG ::: eine thematische Gruppenausstellung zeitgenössischer Kunst

In the organizer's words:

abSTIMMUNG in the xpon-art gallery

A thematic group exhibition of contemporary art

Opening on Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 7 pm

Open afterwards until May 4, 2025

After the election is before the election. When planning the themes for this year, we had taken into account that the Hamburg Senate would be formed anew, but not that the Bundestag would disintegrate and the global political status quo would be completely thrown into disarray. Although we weren't in the best of moods, otherwise we wouldn't have chosen the theme. After all, we wanted to explore how the situation we find ourselves in is reflected in the work of visual artists. The eleven positions in painting, sculpture, drawing, object, collage, video, photography and sound in more than forty exhibits for personal fine-tuning, pausing and locating in detail:

DETLEF KLEIN 's works were only too well suited to the current mood: Is our bubble of prosperity about to burst? Is a third of our population turning to fascism? Who messed it up? Since the 1990s, he has seen himself as a representative of euphoric realism and strives to depict the public presence and in particular the habitus of predominantly male high achievers - the somatized class consciousness, the gestures, the posture and the dress code. Frighteningly well. We have it behind the window, and in the basement.

Countless pieces of information reach us every second, and our subconscious uses patterns, probabilities, prejudices, memories, stereotypes, etc. to sort them. However, these sorting systems are fragile and are the target of targeted manipulation in politics: Methods such as fake news, neologisms, euphemisms & dysphemisms, dog whistle politics, the Mad Man Strategy and others distort our perceptions. NATHALIE HUMMER' s drawings deal with contexts and effects. We are showing them in large and small format on two floors.

In 2020, we showed a social sculpture by an artist in the exhibition deMUT, which is now considered the largest decentralized art monument in the world. We are talking about the Stumbling Stones, a project by the artist GUNTER DEMNIG, which keeps the memory of the persecuted, displaced and destroyed people under National Socialism alive and which have been laid over 100,000 times in more than 30 countries since 1992. As a place where history and art meet, this stone with the inscription "One Stone, One Name, One Person" was to be walled into the historic rooms of the gallery in honor of this work. Then came Corona. And just as Gunter Demnig and his team wall up every single stone with dignity and in memory of the people, we didn't want to do it on the side. But now. The shift to the right, which is not only taking place in German society, the generally desolate and fragile global political situation, and also the submissions to this exhibition show how important it is to take a closer look and engage with the issue, and how important such works are. It seemed only logical to us to include this stone and this work once again in an exhibition. This time walled in.

Our thanks go to the sculptor Jared Bartz, who realized this with us.

For URSULA STEULER, the line "Some think...",referring to the poem "Lichtung" by Ernst Jandl [some think / lechts und rinks / kann man nicht velwechsern / werch ein illtum], embroidered across a tablecloth in clumsy cursive writing over good forget-me-not flowers, refers to a lack of engagement with history, and correspondingly continued attitudes, thought and behavior patterns - private? Or political?

Mood painting? -with a question mark- comes from PETRA HASSELBRING, felt in the gloomy days of November last year when looking into the world beyond the Atlantic, into the blue, into uncertainty. The mood was diffuse, it colored the background of daily life; but not gray in gray, but in blue. Dot, dot, comma, dash did not yet make a happy face. A moody preview of this year? She quotes Heinrich Heine: "A sea of blue thoughts pours over my heart.". History is written in retrospect, they say. You can feel it earlier.

The transparency of state sources becomes visible in the work "Knüller" from the series KLEINGEIST (revisited, 2025) by KATHARINAKOHL on the one hand through the easy access to the document (small inquiry by the CDU/CSU parliamentary group of 24.2.2025 on the "political neutrality of state-funded organizations"). On the other hand, a spontaneous reaction was unleashed in the crunch.

Shift to the right in Europe: the spirit of fascism continues unabated at the Mussolini obelisk and in the Olympic swimming pool of the Foro Italico in Rome, the former heart of Mussolini's urban development plans. To this day, schoolchildren learn to swim here and are picked up by their mothers as if nothing had happened. The post-fascist head of government Meloni is already putting the press under massive pressure - will democracy and the republic be disposed of in passing? The photo series "la Repubblica" by JOHANNES GROHT was taken in Rome unplanned - but almost forced itself upon him.

SABINE VON BASSEWITZ is also concerned with seeing: "Can photography be objective? What it can certainly do is document events or circumstances for history. But by capturing them, objectivity disappears". She prefaces her work with this quote from Vladimir Alexeev. She comes from the village: approx. 450 inhabitants, approx. 70,000 laying hens, Bullerbü romance, agriculture, volunteer fire department, shooting club, alcohol. Infrastructure: The pub "Im Deutschen Haus", popularly known as "Kröger". It meant freedom to her brother, the opposite to her. The photos that exist from this time do not depict either his memories or hers, neither completely nor accurately. In an ongoing project, the photographer is adding to these memories, including contradictions - with the help of generative AI.

Also on display are photos of the legendary Nirvana concert in Hamburg's Markthalle on November 11, 1991, when simply no one had a camera with them.

EVA SCHMECKENBECHER is once again political, but also poetic. In the six-minute video work, the tarpaulin of a saluting cannon seems to come to life, emitting strained sounds and sighs.

The cannon is a US M101A1, manufactured in 1942-44 in the USA, with an original caliber of 105 mm and chambered at 75 mm. It is located at the Vardø fortress in Norway, about 20 km from Russia as the crow flies.

ALEXANDRA VON BRAUN takes a more abstract approach. In her minimalist works, inspired by Zen aesthetics and meditation, she explores the interface between art and mindfulness and distils complexity into clarity in an experimental process - inviting contemplative contemplation.

Finally, a photographic work created in 2019 from the series "eingemacht - acht assoziative dreiklänge". The artist falk.brvt aka FALK VON TRAUBENBERG has been exploring the theme of preserving jars filled with 35mm slides since 2002, both as installations and photographically. For falk.brvt, readings of the associative triad "imagine / mean / remember" can include the questions "How do we imagine our future? What is the significance of our values and convictions that unite us as a community and guide our decisions? And where do we come from and what have we learned from our past?" - both socially and individually.

Let it sink in.If you have any questions, please contact us; if you are thirsty, too. We don't offer anything that we wouldn't drink ourselves, drinks are available for a donation. Free admission, because everyone should have access to culture. However, you are welcome to make a donation if you would otherwise honor it. We conceive these exhibitions and run this space because we think it is important that there are constant and challenging positions between state museums and commercial galleries on the one hand and changing platforms for emerging art on the other - on the one hand to better promote artists, and on the other to create a more vibrant culture for the dialog between art and society. If you would like to support this work, please contact us or simply recommend us to others.

The stories in this exhibition were created by the artists. The text was edited by Gerald Chors.

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With the kind support of the Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media

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Participating artists:

Alexandra von Braun, Detlef Klein, Eva Schmeckenbecher, Falk von Traubenberg, Gunter Demnig, Johannes Groht, Katharina Kohl, Nathalie Hummer, Petra Hasselbring, Sabine von Bassewitz, Ursula Steuler

Duration:

Thursday, April 10, 2025 to Sunday, May 4, 2025

Opening hours:

Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays 6 - 9 pm and n. V.

Vernissage:

Thursday, April 10, 2025 at 7 p.m.

Finissage:

Sunday, 04.05.2025 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Venue:

xpon-art gallery

Repsoldstraße 45

20097 Hamburg

www.xpon-art.de

We will inform you about deviating opening hours on our homepage, our Instagram account @xponartgallery and our Facebook page facebook.com/xponart

In the course of the exhibition, 360° views will be added to the homepage, especially for those who still have to avoid a visit.

Despite everything, we ask you to think about Corona and the flu epidemic and to behave accordingly.

Price information:

Free admission, because everyone should have access to culture. However, you are welcome to make a donation if you would otherwise honor it. Drinks are available for a donation. We don't offer anything that we wouldn't drink ourselves. We conceive these exhibitions and run this space because we think it is important that there are constant and challenging positions between state museums and commercial galleries on the one hand and changing platforms for emerging art on the other - on the one hand to better promote artists who are not yet established, and on the other to create a more vibrant culture for communication between art and the public.