Performance program

Becoming Sculptures

Performance by Ersan Mondtag

• Friday, October 14, 5 pm
• Saturday, October 15, 3 and 5 pm

For his installation The Temple, Ersan Mondtag conceived the performance Becoming Sculptures, which premiered at the opening of Nature and State.

Ersan Mondtag works in theater, music, performance, and installation. His new performance combines previous works such as Sinfonie #1, Nach der Tragödie oder wofür es sich zu leben lohnt (2012), with sound elements, and body movements, new ideas and forms. Elements of water, shadows of the Black Forest and electrifying bodies compose a future scenario with the feeling of the unconscious.

Guided tours

On Sundays at 2 pm

• Sunday, August 7 – German/French
• Sunday, August 14 – German
• Sunday, August 21 – German
• Sunday, August 28 – German
• Sunday, September 11 – German/Russian
• Sunday, September 25 – German/English
• Sunday, October 9 – German/English
• Sunday, October 16 – Directors’ tour with Çağla Ilk and Misal Adnan Yildiz in German/English

2€ per person, plus entry fee

Registration is requested via info@kunsthalle-baden-baden.de until Friday 4 pm prior to the requested date, indicating date and number of participants.

Performance program

Hjîrok

Performance by Hani Mojtahedy and Andi Thoma

• Friday, October 7, 5 pm – also live on instagram!
• Saturday, October 8, 3 and 5 pm

In Mesopotamia, the land between two rivers, water has become precious. This used to be garden Eden, now the water has gone, the earth dried up, exposed and naked under the sun. Goats and sheep flee the Zagros mountains across arbitrary borders, driven by thirst, dying on the way. Rivers and streams have become trickles, as the land lies dry.

It is a man-made drought. An answer to those who took without limits and beyond reason. Nature provided for them until they chose to suck to the last drop, to harvest to the last seed, to ignore their origin, to build castles on mutilated soil.

Here, in the valleys of Iranian-Kurdistan, under the waterfalls, lives Hjirok – The Mother Of O. Eternal soul, life giver, water bound spirit, she waits.

The character of Hjirok – The Mother Of O was created by Hani Mojtahedy as a reflection on the human impact on climate and nature from the beginning of the Anthropocene until now. Extreme heat, sandstorms and water shortage hit the Kurdish region in Iran and Iraq with full force. They are tangible results of climate change, posing more and more threats year for year. Ecosystems are collapsing. Deer and other wildlife are fading out of the region as their natural habitat is destroyed by extreme weather conditions and lack of water.

Hjirok, a water spirit, is evoking the return to a holistic view on this region. In this context, water can be seen as a symbol of life and fertility. A resource, which reaches its limits, consequently causing conflict in nature and between involved nations of the region in a fight for survival. Hjirok – The Mother Of O still waits in her element, among waterfalls, for mankind to return to her and accept her gifts in their intrinsic meaning instead of choosing exploitation. It is not too late, she sings.

In 2021 and 2022 Hani Mojtahedy and sound artist and producer Andi Toma (Mouse On Mars) traveled to the Kurdish region on the Iranian-Iraqi border to find back to the roots of the transcendental sounds of the this landscape. In Hawraman, close to the Iranian border, Hani send her voice onto a journey across the frontiers of time and space. In the valley of Hjirok, sacred ground for the Ezidis, they gathered extensive field recordings, lending their ear to the soundscape of wind, mountains and the living beings crossing through.

RDD – Robodynamische Diffusion

A project by Michael Akstaller, Nele Jäger, Oliver Mayer and Jan St. Werner

Performance in the public sphere

• Saturday, October 8, 2 pm, starting in front of the Kunsthalle – and live on instagram!
• Sunday, October 9, 2 pm, starting in front of the Kunsthalle

On October 8 and 9, our artistic research project RDD (Robodynamic Diffusion) will be heard for the first time in public space. The focus of RDD is the unfolding of the spatial effects of sound by decoupling sounds from instruments to move freely in space. The movement of the sound bodies through robotic objects in the architecture creates acoustic reflections and resonances, sound waves break on the structural forms and set the environment into vibrations. The venue itself becomes part of the instrument and is actively involved in the composition: a transformation of space into sound.

Fotzenschleimpower gegen Raubtierkapitalismus

Performance by Mateja Meded

• Friday, September 30, 5 pm
• Saturday, October 1, 2 pm

In her work, the artist, actress and author Mateja Meded deals intensively with language, its use and implicit power: in a society still dominated by men who largely fill positions of power, language is an equivalent of this logic and thus reproduces existing structures. In the tradition of feminist practices Meded finds forms of appropriation and creates a gesture of self-empowerment.

Meded’s performance Fotzenschleimpower gegen Raubtierkapitalismus (Cunt slime power against predatory capitalism) continues the narrative of her video If you want to understand the universe, you have to think in terms of frequency, vibration and energy (2021-2022). Herein, a quote by physicist Nicola Tesla forms the frame of a time capsule; a message from an alien-artist from the future.

In her performance, Meded embodies this being that “sits somewhere between nature and the state, increasing isolationist policies, recession, wars and authoritarian regimes, Nazis and White Supremacy, exploitation and overexploitation of humans and nature as destructible resources (…).” Now, the alien-artist lands in the Kunsthalle and interrogates with the world’s state of mind.

“(…) The being listens to Schwesta Ewa, the being reads Audre Lorde, the being drinks a Raki and thinks about white feminism. (…) The being spreads panic, genital panic from the compendium on feminist art. Cunt slime power says the being, bitchwitch futurism. (…) Hochkültür.”

Fotzenschleimpower gegen Raubtierkapitalismus oder Frequent Vibrations (2022) by Mateja Meded. Concept, Performance: Mateja Meded, Concept, Dramaturgy: Hayat Erdoğan

If you want to understand the universe, you have to think in terms of frequency, vibration and energy (2021-2022) by Mateja Meded. Concept, video, text: Mateja Meded, Music: Thomas Köck. Commissioned for “100 Ways to Say We”, co-produced by Theater Neumarkt & Goethe Institute, curated by Hayat Erdoğan, Florian Malzacher et al., 2021-22. 

© and courtesy the artist

Childrens’ workshop

Protect what you love

A unique art project about environmental protection and creative solutions

In cooperation with artist Tatjana Golder, the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden is offering a creative program for children and their adult companions. The workshop Protect what you love will take place twice on Saturdays and, in addition to craft techniques, will teach a responsible approach to materials and resources.

The creative-playful part of the workshop focuses on creating unique figures from plastic waste. There are no limits to the childrens’ creativity, they are invited to realize their own ideas. In addition, the children can participate in the Book of the Sea and thus become part of a constantly growing work of art. The book consists of three-dimensional elements to which the children can contribute with self-made sea creatures made of fabric. As a contrast to this playfully concentrated part, the children can enjoy a game of movement in the outdoor area of the Kunsthalle, where they can look forward to small gifts.

The workshop will last about an hour and take place at the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden on the following dates:

• Saturday, August 06, 10 am, 11.30 am
• Saturday, August 13, 10 am, 11.30 am
• Saturday, August 20, 10 am, 11.30 am
• Saturday, August 27, 10 am, 11.30 am
• Saturday, September 03, 10 am, 11.30 am
• Saturday, September 10, 10 am, 11.30 am
• Saturday, September 17, 10 am, 11.30 am
• Saturday, September 24, 10 am, 11.30 am

Registration is requested, indicating date, desired time and number of children to info@kunsthalle-baden-baden.de

The workshop is for children 5 years and older. Since we will be working with various tools, we ask that at least one adult accompany the children.

The various materials will be provided. However, the children are also cordially invited to look for plastic waste (optimal size approx. 1 – 20 cm) in advance and bring it to the workshop.

KREISLAUF

In August and as part of Nature and State SKBB launches a new format: KREISLAUF.

The German expression KREISLAUF brings meanings of circulation, cycle, and circuit in relation to moving images and the display of them as a loop in an exhibition context. It also references nature’s cycle, the body’s and the transition of things.

As a series of weekly video programming located in Ersan Mondtag’s installation The Temple, KREISLAUF focuses a highly curated selection on geographies of transition, geo-subjective perspectives on global issues such as climate change, drought and drainage, with local references and glocal sensitivity. Within its focuses and critical lenses, KREISLAUF investigates forms and storytelling mostly through non-European, Asian Pacific and transnational connections and artistic perspectives on these geopolitical conflicts. Each week will feature a video piece, or two in conversation, unfolding questions from the exhibition.

PART I – Tuesday, August 2 to Sunday, August 7

Malina Heinemann & Joseph Kadow, Mouth of Ox (Musso I Voi) (2021-22)

In their video work Mouth of Ox, filmmakers Malina Heinemann and Joseph Kadow explore the magic and aesthetics of natural and human-induced phenomena. The film follows the story of an environmental disaster that abruptly changes the lives of humans and animals. Escape and loss are the results of an ash cloud shown in the film that rages across the landscape of southern Italy.

As a starting point for this storytelling, Heinemann and Kadow take the stony, unreal crater landscape of Mount Etna, reminiscent of a distant planet. These associatively laden images give the fear of the unknown a firm place in a planet-related aesthetic. The non-invasive exploration of this terrestrial science fiction setting therefore not only reveals a certain unease about a future of the planet unknown to us but also shows that nature may very soon reclaim its original place in the ecological power structure.

PART II – Tuesday, August 9 to Sunday, August 14

Vibha Galhotra, Manthan (2015)

The video work Manthan by Indian artist Vibha Galhotra is based on a legend from Hindu mythology in which the gods and demons wring out the ocean to obtain the nectar of immortality. In her film, Galhotra performatively reproduces this gesture, showing that instead of the hoped-for immortality, our rivers hold only poison and death for us.

Manthan explores the consequences of an ecological threat and imagines a process of purification in which toxic waste is flushed from the sacred Yamuna River, located near New Delhi in India. The film is an appeal to our society and, at the same time, a refusal to give up hope for a human future in harmony with nature. With her work, Galhotra shows that we are on a frightening path and must act as soon as possible before it is too late.

PART III – Tuesday, August 16 to Sunday, August 21

Stelios Kallinikou, Weeper Capuchin (2020-22)

In Austerlitz W.G. Sebald, quoting John Berger, sets forth that “captive animals and we ourselves, their human counterparts, view one another across a narrow abyss of incomprehension.” The work (Weeper Capuchin, 2020/21) negotiate this space between us and the animal, striving to offer a bridge that hovers over the void. The expressive eyes of the Capuchins, as if carrying a prehistoric melancholy, exchange glances with the viewer via a thick glass wall that is invisible in the photographs, much like the photographic lens. Often birds find tragic death on such reflective glass walls because they are not visible to them.

Olga Chernysheva, Inconsolable: The Giver of Hope at Revolution Square (2014)

Moscow based artist Olga Chernysheva is a careful observer who generates social, political, and critical forms of portraits of her time. Looking at the street, watching people and espacially the transformations, happenings, and events in the public sphere, she comes up with authentic forms of storytelling.

In her video work Inconsolable: The Giver of Hope at Revolution Square (2014), she zooms in on the nose holes and people’s fingers that touch this bronze sculptural element with everyday noise. One might recognise the sculptures at the Ploshchad Revolyutsii station of Moscow, in total 76 bronze figures depicting common people from the Soviet regime. ONe of them stands with an almost life sized dog sculpture, and for years, it has been an unspoken agreement that people stealthily caress its nose – for good luck. As an urban legend, this dog has power that transcend its bronze-ness and even its dogness.

PART IV – Tuesday, August 23 to Sunday, August 28

Denise Ferreira da Silva & Arjuna Neuman, 4 Waters (2019), Serpent Rain, (2016), Sooth Breath (2021)

Arjuna Neuman, artist, filmmaker and writer, and Denise Ferreira da Silva, philosopher and academic, study across disciplines – calling on quantum mechanics to polyrhythms, from Tarkovsky to Hype Williams, from heat to Anaximander, in order to speculate how to exist otherwise as humans in the world.

Their works share strong critical notes, experimental approach and collaborative research on certain global issues such as migration, colonization, resource extraction, and environmental thinking. Methodologically speaking, Neuman and Ferreira da Silva are interested in the politics and poetics of the moving image, focusing on the tensions between what is seen and remains opaque, what seems solid but is in transition.

PART V – Tuesday, August 30 to Sunday, September 04

Nicholas Mangan, Ancient Lights (2015)

Nicholas Mangan’s two-part video work Ancient Lights explores the energy-giving properties of the sun.

One of the videos comprises a montage of different filmic and imagistic sources related to the sun: footage of the Gemasolar plant near Seville, Spain; images of tree-rings taken at the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research at the University of Arizona, Tucson that are used to analyse sun spot activity throughout history; and Russian biophysicist Alexander Tchijevsky’s (1897-1964) chart that attempted to correlate sun spot activity in the eleven-year solar cycle with human activity. The other video shows high-speed, high-definition, digital film footage of a Mexican ten-peso coin spinning on its axis. This coin bears the image of Tonatiuh, the Aztec sun god, who also features in the Aztec calendar or Sun Stone, a circular diagrammatic sculpture from the early sixteenth century that outlines the ancient Aztec cosmogony.

In the context of Nature and State, Ancient Lights exemplifies ancient narratives of earthly existence and their recording, analysis, and perception through scientific domains.

O Barco/The Boat

Installation by Grada Kilomba

Until Sunday, July 31, 2022 in the Lichtentaler Allee park

In her most recent installation and performance O Barco/The Boat, interdisciplinary artist and writer Grada Kilomba addresses forgotten and repressed portions of colonial history. The performance was shown on the occasion of our opening weekend and the installation in the Lichtentaler Allee will be on display until July 31, 2022.

The large-scale installation, adapted for the historic meadow in the immediate vicinity of the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, negotiates the trauma of exclusion and death, but also enables new perspectives and experiences of beginnings of community and solidarity.

The work stretches over a length of 32 meters and consists of 140 charred wooden blocks that recreate the silhouette of one of those ships that transported the bodies of millions of Africans to the Americas.

Director’s tour

Sunday, July 31, 2022

At 2 pm, Çağla Ilk, director of the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden a will lead a guided tour through the current exhibition Nature and State. The tour is 2 € p.p., entry ticket is required.

Philharmonic Park Night

Saturday, July 30, 2022

On the occasion of the Philharmonic Park Night, which will take place on Saturday, July 30, 2022 in Lichtentaler Allee, the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden will be open until 9 pm that evening.

At 6 pm, director of the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden Çağla Ilk will lead a guided tour through the current exhibition Nature and State. The tour is open to the public and free of charge. Entry ticket is required.

Becoming Sculptures

Performance by Ersan Mondtag

Friday, 29 – Saturday, July 30, 2022

For his installation The Temple, Ersan Mondtag conceived the performance Becoming Sculptures, which premiered at the opening of Nature and State.

Ersan Mondtag works in theater, music, performance, and installation. His new performance combines previous works such as Sinfonie #1, Nach der Tragödie oder wofür es sich zu leben lohnt (2012), with sound elements, and body movements, new ideas and forms. Elements of water, shadows of the Black Forest and electrifying bodies compose a future scenario with the feeling of the unconscious.

The performance will be realized by Fernando Balsera, Giorgia Bovo, Jonas Grundner-Culemann, Yuri Shimaoka and Ulysse Zangs.

• Friday, July 29, 5 pm
• Saturday, July 30, 1 pm, 5 pm and 8 pm

On Saturday, July 30, the Kunsthalle will be open until 9 pm.

The Liars

Performance by Kavachi

Thursday, 28 – Sunday, July 31, 2022

During opening hours

New forms of alien intelligence, monsters, or simply just frogs? Kavachi’s ongoing project called The Liars stirs up our curiosity by questioning gender identitites in a formless and playful way. The fluid bodies of the frog-like creatures refer to different life forms, gender fluidity and are an open approach to alternative understandings of sexuality and sexual healing. Anonymity and the feeling of otherness surround these funny and fluffy figures shedding light on those of us who still struggle with their own sexuality.

From July 28 until July 31, Kavachi will sew a new frog in Ersan Mondtag’s temple at the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, transforming it into a studio, a space for frogs, a nest for birds and a meeting point for new encounters.

You are kindly invited to experience the birth of a new frog live at the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden and to donate old textile pieces and clothes to contribute to the work.

Re-Screening

Recorded artist talks

July 22 – 24, 2022

During opening hours

From Friday, July 22 to Sunday, July 24, the recordings of the artist talks held by the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden team as part of the opening weekend of Nature and State will be on view. Temporarily installed on a large screen in Ersan Mondtag’s temple, you can catch up on the conversations.

With the Re-Screening of the artist talks we invite you to learn more about the artistic practice of the artists represented in Nature and State and to build a very own connection to the artists and their works.

Manuel Rossner – in German
Ayman Zedani – in English
Will Fredo – in English
Silvina Der-Merguitchian – in English
Kavachi – in English
Murat Öner – in English
Robert Lippok – in German
Nicole L’Huillier – in English
Michael Akstaller – in German
Cansu Çakar – in English
Christoph Schäfer – in German
Sorawit Songsataya – in English
Ipek Duben – in English

The Liars

Performance by Kavachi

Friday July 15 – Sunday 17, 2022

Alien intelligence, monsters, or simply just frogs? We don’t really know and this is one of many reasons why the protagonists of Kavachi‘s ongoing project called The Liars capture our attention. The fluid bodies of the frog-like creatures refer to different life forms, special powers, gender fluidity and thus are symbols of constant transformation. Anonymity and the feeling of otherness surround these funny and fluffy figures shedding light on those of us who still dispute our own sexuality.

From the Kunsthalle’s opening on Friday Morning till its closing on Sunday, Kavachi will sew a new frog in Ersan Mondtag’s temple and thus transform it into a studio, a space for frogs, a nest for birds, and a meeting point for new encounters.

You are all welcome to experience the birth of a new frog live at the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, and invited to donate your textile pieces to contribute to the work.

On Friday, July 15, the Kunsthalle will extend its opening hours until 9pm (21:00 Uhr). As generally on Fridays, admission is free.

Hjîrok

Performance by Hani Mojtahedy

Friday July 15 – Sunday 17, 2022

The performance Hjîrok by Hani Mojtahedy as announced in the press for this upcoming weekend, unfortunately needs to be canceled for health reasons.

We apologize for the inconvenience and plan to reschedule for October.

Opening Weekend

Opening and performances

Friday, July 08

6 pm: Opening

7 pm: O Barco/The Boat by Grada Kilomba

In her new installation and performance O Barco/The Boat, the interdisciplinary artist and author Grada Kilomba addresses forgotten and repressed parts of colonial history. The large-scale installation, adapted for the historic meadow in the immediate vicinity of the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, deals with the trauma of exclusion and death, but also enables new perspectives and experiences of first moments of community and solidarity. O Barco/The Boat is commissioned and produced by BoCa, and co-produced by Staatliche Kunsthalle-Baden-Baden and MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon.

8.30 pm: Becoming Sculptures by Ersan Mondtag

During opening weekend Ersan Mondtag’s new work The Temple will be activated for the first time through his likewise new performance Becoming Sculptures. Both works have been commissioned by Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden. Different tracks of storytelling on human existence and alien forms are followed by an accumulation of acts, events, and discussions; all taking place in a humid temple architecture, a proposal for a temporary museum by Mondtag, that will dry out over time. The temple refers to ancient structures, where social, private, political and transcendent fields intersected.

The recorded live-stream of Becoming Sculptures is now available on Kunsthalle Baden-Baden’s YouTube Account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgwZMrNigNE&t=1s

Artist talks

Saturday, July 09, 12 pm

As part of the opening weekend of NATURE AND STATE, we are inviting the public to join us in artist talks between

Manuel Rossner
Ayman Zedani
Will Fredo
Silvina Der-Merguitchian
Kavachi
Murat Önen

and the team of Kunsthalle Baden-Baden. The recorded live-stream is now available on Kunsthalle Baden-Baden’s YouTube Account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc4fYwzx3jw&t=7s

Sunday, July 10, 12 pm

As part of the opening weekend of NATURE AND STATE, we are inviting the public to join us in artist talks between

Robert Lippok
Nicole L’Huillier
Michael Akstaller
Cansu Çakar
Christoph Schäfer
Sorawit Songsataya
Ipek Duben

and the team of Kunsthalle Baden-Baden. The recorded live-stream is now available on Kunsthalle Baden-Baden’s YouTube Account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChCq9-EHn7k&t=34s