The annual theme BETWEEN USE AND CONTEMPLATION was borrowed from the exhibition curated by Albert Kirchengast entitled "Elemental Vessels. Between Use and Contemplation: Another Narrative of Modernity" and declared the guiding principle of the program for the entire year.

In 2023, the Lemke Country House will be 90 years old. It was designed in 1932/33 by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the couple Karl and Martha Lemke as a residence. A residential house is generally intended for living and use. Thus, the clients also had clear ideas about living in their own house. But Mies would not be Mies if he had not given the Lemke house an additional spiritual-aesthetic dimension through a radical clarity of architectural language and openness to nature. This also makes the property a place for contemplation. In this respect, in 2023 we remember the clients Lemke and the architect Mies and their utopian ideas for a modern life. The Mies van der Rohe Haus, which has now advanced to become an exhibition venue for contemporary art, always refers to Mies van der Rohe, the house itself, and the culture of modernism in its current programs.

Exhibition: 16.04.-25.06.2023

Seemingly logical, yet ultimately elusive are the paintings of Shannon Finley (*1974). In an interplay of geometric detail and the wholeness of the canvas, a complex tension emerges that is constantly reconstituted before the viewer's eye. His prismatic paintings are reminiscent of the technoid world of Metropolis or the rough pixels of early computer games. Canadian artist Shannon Finley has lived and worked in Berlin since 2014. Finley's exhibition "Aftermathematics" is part of the thematic series 2023 "Between Use and Contemplation".

ART PLACE REVOLUTION - Part 1: Collage Workshop and Sound Installation

07/15/2023

The Mies van der Rohe Haus and the Museum Lichtenberg im Stadthaus are participating in the cultural program DRAUSSENSTADT with a joint event.

On Saturday, July 15, 2023 at 3-7 p.m., an artistic collage workshop and sound installation with Danish-Ukrainian artist Sergei Sviatchenko and Berlin-based musician and composer Konstantin Schimanowski will take place at the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery in Berlin.

The subject is the "Revolution Monument" designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in 1926 and destroyed by the Nazis in 1935. The monument once stood in the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery, commemorating the victims of the November Revolution of 1918/19. The abstract architectural sculpture was not only artistically outstanding, but also stood at the beginning of a democratic awakening that came to an abrupt end in 1933.

At the monument's original site, Danish-Ukrainian artist Sergei Sviatchenko will hold a workshop that will connect participants' personal stories to the historical context of the lost monument. Sviatchenko will be accompanied and supported by Berlin-based musician and composer Konstantin Shimanovsky, who will produce a site-specific sound installation for this purpose.

The cultural program DRAUSSENSTADT aims at the cultural participation of as many people as possible. It bundles, shows and enables Berlin's outdoor urban culture. It was launched in 2021 by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.

Konstantin Schimanowski is a composer, music producer and sound artist. He was born in Olenegorsk, Russia, in 1985 and emigrated to Germany at the age of eight. Shimanovsky studied philosophy and art history at the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg im Breisgau, followed by an M.A. degree in Sound Studies and Sonic Arts at the Universität der Künste, Berlin. Performances include the exhibition "Cosmocopies" at the House of World Cultures and the reopening of the Hansa Library in Berlin as a tribute to the International Building Exhibition "Interbau" in 1957.

Sergei Sviatchenko was born in Ukraine and has lived and worked in Viborg, Denmark since 1990. He graduated from the Kharkiv Academy of Art and Architecture in 1975 and received his PhD from the Kyiv School of Architecture. He is honorary member and Professor at the Ukrainian Academy of Architecture. With one foot in his native Ukraine and the other in Denmark, Sviatchenko combines the traditions of Soviet Constructivism and photomontage with the Bauhaus aesthetic, as well as Western Pop Art, abstract expressionism, and rock music. Sviatchenko's collages and paintings have been exhibited in Denmark, Germany, Italy, France, England, Canada, and the United States, and published in magazines worldwide.

Location of the event

Location Revolution Monument
Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde
Gudrunstraße 20
10365 Berlin

Curators

Simon Behringer and Jan Maruhn

ART PLACE REVOLUTION - Part 2: ANIMATION MOVIE - OPEN SET

8/12/2023

The Mies van der Rohe Haus and the Museum Lichtenberg im Stadthaus are participating in the cultural program DRAUSSENSTADT with a joint event.

On Saturday, August 12, 2023 at 11am-7pm, a live production of an animated film by the artists Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann will take place at the Central Cemetery Friedrichsfelde in Berlin. The film set can be visited as long as there is daylight.

The film set will be the former site of the Revolution Monument, at the graves of Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and dozens of other victims of the November Revolution. It becomes the setting for an animated film with plasticine figures, in which the former head of the Google corporation, Eric Schmidt, and Rosa Luxemburg meet. How can this encounter take place at a monument that no longer exists?

With this work, Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann continue a series of plasticine animation films that they have been producing in changing constellations since the 1990s. The production of animated films consumes a lot of time with its twelve shots per second. This makes it necessary to stay in the same place for a longer period of time. Thus, it can be considered an extremely slowed-down commemoration. The visitors are invited to participate in this process together with the artists* and to help develop the movie in an ongoing exchange. How the story unfolds in the film remains to be seen.

Alice Creischer studied philosophy, German language and literature, and fine arts in Düsseldorf. As one of the key figures of the German political art scene of the nineties, Creischer was involved in a large number of collective projects, publications and exhibitions. In her work, Creischer mainly deals with topics such as economy and money, power and powerlessness, as well as poverty and wealth. For a long time she was a regular contributor to "Texte zur Kunst" and "springerin". As a curator, she participated in important exhibitions criticizing neoliberalism and colonialism. Institutional solo exhibitions showed Creischer as a conceptual artist, painter and sculptor. In 2006, she received the Norwegian Edward Munch Prize for Contemporary Art. In 2007 she was represented at documenta 12.

Andreas Siekmann's works deal with the economization and privatization of public urban space. His works are in the tradition of the Cologne Progressives. Siekmann studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. He works with various media, including drawing, painting, film, objects and interventions in public space. Together with Alice Creischer, he regularly curates exhibitions. His work has been part of the International Biennial of Contemporary Art of South America, Buenos Aires (2017); the 13th Istanbul Biennial (2013); Documenta 12 (2007) and Documenta11 (2002); and the 50th Venice Biennale (2003).

Location of the event

Location Revolution Monument
Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde
Gudrunstraße 20
10365 Berlin

Curators

Simon Behringer and Jan Maruhn