past :: exhibition

Symptoms of the Future: BRICKS — BASKETS — POTS

Bie Michels
Marjetica Potrč
26 March — 16 May, 2021

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What makes it possible for a work of art to live simultaneously in the aesthetic and social worlds? How can we encourage or enhance a “multi-temporality” and cross the line between “common objects” and “artistic objects” without succumbing to the privatization of culture as a form of property? Questions like these are the crux of the year-long program SYMPTOMS OF THE FUTURE.

The first exhibition in this series BRICKS — BASKETS — POTS presents works by Bie Michels and Marjetica Potrč, exploring our deep connection to earth. A circular movement of soil and life is documented in the artists’ works. 

Since 2016 Bie Michels explores the meaning of bricks throughout history. For this exhibition she starts from the performance “Piles of Bricks” (2020) realised in collaboration with Malagasy artist Liantsoa Rakotonaivo, and develops a new work “Brick Dust” (2020-2021) — a choreography for bricks performed during the exhibition and drawings on paper using the red dust that bricks shed. While the movement of bricks reconfigures the physical, heavy and earthly space, the drawing series “Mensenvogel” depict flying people made out of brick dust — airy, weightless and suspended in emptiness. A circular movement of soil and life is documented in this work. 

Marjetica Potrč transforms her original drawing “Nomads Inhabit Islands, Settlers Build Walls” (2016), that brings together the desire for freedom and the desire for security into a large walldrawing. “The Basket Weaver Weaves Difference” (2016) and “The Pot Maker Shapes Unity” (2016), two drawings and two objects, compare object-making with world-making. These works are part of the series “Earth Drawings” that conceptualize the vital role of indigenous knowledge and practices in the contemporary world and point to the growing alliances between native groups and bottom-up initiatives in the effort to ensure a more resilient future beyond the social and economic agreement of the neoliberal order.
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The title of the year program SYMPTOMS OF THE FUTURE derives from the title of the book in the making, a collaborative project between Out of Sight (Antwerp) and Stereovizija (Belgrade).

Marjetica Potrč, NOMADS INHABIT ISLANDS, SETTLERS BUILD WALLS [acrylic paint on wall Walldrawing from original drawing Nomads Inhabit Islands, Settlers Build Walls, 2016]. Courtesy artist and Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin/Stockholm/Mexico City
Marjetica Potrč, THE BASKET WEAVER WEAVES DIFFERENCE [drawing, ink on paper and fiber basket, 2016]. Courtesy artist and Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin/Stockholm/Mexico City
Marjetica Potrč, THE POT MAKER SHAPES UNITY [drawing, ink on paper and clay pot, 2016]. Courtesy artist and Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin/Stockholm/Mexico City
Bie Michels, MENSENVOGEL [brick dust on paper, 2020]. Courtesy of the artist.
Bie Michels, MENSENVOGEL [brick dust on paper, 2020]. Courtesy of the artist.
Bie Michels, PILES OF BRICKS (WORKING PROCESS) [performance, 2020-ongoing]. Courtesy of the artist.
Bie Michels, PILES OF BRICKS (WORKING PROCESS) [performance, 2020-ongoing]. Courtesy of the artist.
Bie Michels, LA COULEUR DE LA BRIQUE [film, 46', 2017]. Courtesy of the artist.
Bie Michels, LA COULEUR DE LA BRIQUE [film, 46', 2017]. Courtesy of the artist.
Bie Michels, LA COULEUR DE LA BRIQUE [film, 46', 2017]. Courtesy of the artist.