Die Freiheit, die wir meinen

Eva Barto
Tyler Coburn
Marie Cool Fabio Balducci
Inga Danysz
Adriana Lara

23.11.2019 – 02.02.2020
Opening: 22.11.2019, 19:00

The Kunstverein Bielefeld is delighted to present Die Freiheit, die wir meinen (What we mean by freedom), featuring Eva Barto (b. 1987, Nantes, France, lives and works in Paris, France), Tyler Coburn (b. 1983 in New York, USA, lives and works in New York, USA), Marie Cool Fabio Balducci (b. 1961 Valenciennes, France, and 1964 in Ostra, Italy, live and work in Paris, France, and Pergola, Italy), Inga Danysz (b. 1990 in Warsaw, Poland, lives and works in Frankfurt am Main) and Adriana Lara (b. 1978 in Mexico City, Mexico, lives and works in Mexico). The show focuses on freedom and what underlies our contemporary conceptions of the idea.

Since the beginning of modernity, the idea of the aesthetic has been linked to libertarian ideals of a free and happy life. This has its origin in the demand for autonomy and self-determination, which was triggered in the nineteenth century by the critique of forms of life in the early industrial society. Although efforts toward freedom and individual self-actualization were first limited to artistic and intellectual circles, the 1968 protest movement saw a more widespread diffusion of aesthetic critique within society. But today’s social critique faces a fundamentally changed situation. The demand for freedom, autonomy and creativity now goes hand in hand with an imperative of exploitation. Self-determined, creative action has become the basis of a new philosophy of life and work, and thus of a model of value creation in which competence is measured according to individual characteristics and performative capacities. But if artistic processes are subordinated to the productivity of social reproduction, can the aesthetic still be seen as a force of cultural contestation? What does it mean today to regard art as belonging to the party of critique and emancipation? What do changing ideas of freedom mean for contemporary artistic production?

KUNSTVEREIN BIELEFELD
Welle 61
33602 Bielefeld

Thu - So 12:00 – 18:00
Mo-Wed, by appointment
Closed on public holidays
Winter break 26.12.2024 - 02.01.2025

T +49 (0) 521.17 88 06
F +49 (0) 521.17 88 10
kontakt@kunstverein-bielefeld.de

Triangle pointing left Triangle pointing right
The installation "Sistema en tiempo real" by the artist Adriana Lara is a four-part collage series whose framings cut through the images to visualize numbers in a time display. The numbers in the piece make palpable ideas of interactivity in our perception of time.

Adriana Lara, STR (Sistema en tiempo real), 2019. Exhibition view Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

1/17
The installation "Sistema en tiempo real" by the artist Adriana Lara is a four-part collage series whose framings cut through the images to visualize numbers in a time display. The numbers in the piece make palpable ideas of interactivity in our perception of time.

Adriana Lara, STR (Sistema en tiempo real), 2019. Exhibition view Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

2/17
The vintage poster entitled "Cheerios Media" by Adriana Lara highlights the communications media of the pre-digital era while also questioning the conditioning we undergo at the hands of contemporary media.

Adriana Lara, Cheerios Media, 2019. Exhibition view Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

3/17
Bei der Arbeit mit dem Titel "The Philanthropist, (version 2, From Gallery Barbara Weiss 25.01.19 to Kunstverein Bielefeld 22.11.2019)" von der Künstlerin Eva Barto, das auf der Fensterbank liegt, handelt es sich um ein per Hand geschriebenes Zertifikat, das den Erhalt von 250 Euro bestätigt. Dieser Betrag wurde von dem ersten Ausstellungsort des Werkes, der Galerie Barbara Weiss, bestimmt und an die Künstlerin gegeben. Jede weitere Institution, die diese Arbeit ausstellt, verrichtet die Summe an den vorangegangenen Ausstellungsort. Potentiell könnte das Werk zu jedem Zeitpunkt an die Künstlerin zurückgehen, was bedeutet, dass der Betrag erstattet und die Zirkulation des Werkes beendet wird. Barto eröffnet mit "The Philanthropist" ein eigenes Distributionssystem, in dem das Verhältnis von Geld Wert aufgebrochen wird, um eine veränderte Narration über Prozesse der Wertzuschreibung zu eröffnen. Eine weitere Arbeit Bartos trägt den Titel "Whistleblowers, Version 2 (GE)". Es handelt sich um eine Funkbake, deren Positionierung im Innen- oder Außenraum sich nach dem jeweils national gültigen Gesetz für Whistleblower richtet. In Deutschland ist im April 2019 ein neues Gesetz in Kraft getreten, das erstmalig regelt, dass Geschäftsgeheimnisse unter bestimmten Bedingungen veröffentlicht werden dürfen, wenn die freie Meinungsäußerung behindert wird. Vom dem Hintergrund des neu definierten Schutzes für Whistleblower ist Bartos Arbeit im Kunstverein Bielefeld im Innenraum positioniert. In immer wieder neuen Kontexten fragt Barto mit diesem Werk nach der Verändertbarkeit der Gestalt von Macht.

Eva Barto, The Philanthropist (version 2, From Gallery Barbara Weiss 25/01/19 to Kunstverein Bielefeld 22/11/19) and Whistleblowers, Version 2 (GE), 2019. Exhibition view Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

4/17
The work entitled "Ship of Fools" by Tyler Coburn, is one of the works he recently produced for the Kunstverein Bielefeld, is a wall installation which disrupts the dominant architecture of the exhibition spaces and plays with our ideas of front- and rear-sidedness. Only on closer inspection do we notice a woodcut integrated into the wall, depicting a fool blindfolding Justitia, the goddess of justice. This woodcut reproduces one thought to be the work of Albrecht Dürer, which first appeared in Sebastian Brant’s 1494 book The Ship of Fools. Since the sixteenth century, Justitia’s blindness has been seen as a symbol of the court’s neutrality, but in this image—the first known representation of Justitia as such—she is blinded in a willful mockery and corruption of the legal process.

Tyler Coburn, Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools), 2019. Exhibition view Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

5/17
The work entitled "Ship of Fools" by Tyler Coburn, is one of the works he recently produced for the Kunstverein Bielefeld, is a wall installation which disrupts the dominant architecture of the exhibition spaces and plays with our ideas of front- and rear-sidedness. Only on closer inspection do we notice a woodcut integrated into the wall, depicting a fool blindfolding Justitia, the goddess of justice. This woodcut reproduces one thought to be the work of Albrecht Dürer, which first appeared in Sebastian Brant’s 1494 book The Ship of Fools. Since the sixteenth century, Justitia’s blindness has been seen as a symbol of the court’s neutrality, but in this image—the first known representation of Justitia as such—she is blinded in a willful mockery and corruption of the legal process.

Tyler Coburn, Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools), 2019. Ausstellungsansicht Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

6/17
The work entitled "Ship of Fools" by Tyler Coburn, is one of the works he recently produced for the Kunstverein Bielefeld, is a wall installation which disrupts the dominant architecture of the exhibition spaces and plays with our ideas of front- and rear-sidedness. Only on closer inspection do we notice a woodcut integrated into the wall, depicting a fool blindfolding Justitia, the goddess of justice. This woodcut reproduces one thought to be the work of Albrecht Dürer, which first appeared in Sebastian Brant’s 1494 book The Ship of Fools. Since the sixteenth century, Justitia’s blindness has been seen as a symbol of the court’s neutrality, but in this image—the first known representation of Justitia as such—she is blinded in a willful mockery and corruption of the legal process.

Tyler Coburn, Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools), 2019. Ausstellungsansicht Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

7/17
Inga Danysz’s work “Remedies for Vertigo”, produced specifically for the exhibition Die Freiheit, die wir meinen (What we mean by freedom), is an installation which stretches across several floors of the Kunstverein, but which pushes back against the building’s existing architecture. The construction is made of individual glass tubes [pipes]: it begins as a funnel-shaped object on the ground floor, then continues up the stairwell to the first floor. Danysz’s design evokes a liquid flow moving against the force of gravity, whose passage is interrupted over and over again. An object thus emerges whose form has the appearance of a glass tube turned on its own axis. The accumulation of materials and residues inside the glass tubes form yet another constriction.

Inga Danysz, Remedies for vertigo, 2019. Exhibition view Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

8/17
Inga Danysz’s work “Remedies for Vertigo”, produced specifically for the exhibition Die Freiheit, die wir meinen (What we mean by freedom), is an installation which stretches across several floors of the Kunstverein, but which pushes back against the building’s existing architecture. The construction is made of individual glass tubes [pipes]: it begins as a funnel-shaped object on the ground floor, then continues up the stairwell to the first floor. Danysz’s design evokes a liquid flow moving against the force of gravity, whose passage is interrupted over and over again. An object thus emerges whose form has the appearance of a glass tube turned on its own axis. The accumulation of materials and residues inside the glass tubes form yet another constriction.

Inga Danysz, Remedies for vertigo, 2019. Exhibition view Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

9/17
Inga Danysz, *Remedies for vertigo*, 2019. Exhibition view *Die Freiheit, die wir meinen*, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

Inga Danysz, Remedies for vertigo, 2019. Ausstellungsansicht Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

10/17
Inga Danysz, *Remedies for vertigo*, 2019. Exhibition view *Die Freiheit, die wir meinen*, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

Inga Danysz, Remedies for vertigo, 2019. Ausstellungsansicht Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

11/17
Inga Danysz’s work “Remedies for Vertigo”, produced specifically for the exhibition Die Freiheit, die wir meinen (What we mean by freedom), is an installation which stretches across several floors of the Kunstverein, but which pushes back against the building’s existing architecture. The construction is made of individual glass tubes [pipes]: it begins as a funnel-shaped object on the ground floor, then continues up the stairwell to the first floor. Danysz’s design evokes a liquid flow moving against the force of gravity, whose passage is interrupted over and over again. An object thus emerges whose form has the appearance of a glass tube turned on its own axis. The accumulation of materials and residues inside the glass tubes form yet another constriction.

Inga Danysz, Remedies for vertigo, 2019. Exhibition view Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

12/17
Inga Danysz’s work “Remedies for Vertigo”, produced specifically for the exhibition Die Freiheit, die wir meinen (What we mean by freedom), is an installation which stretches across several floors of the Kunstverein, but which pushes back against the building’s existing architecture. The construction is made of individual glass tubes [pipes]: it begins as a funnel-shaped object on the ground floor, then continues up the stairwell to the first floor. Danysz’s design evokes a liquid flow moving against the force of gravity, whose passage is interrupted over and over again. An object thus emerges whose form has the appearance of a glass tube turned on its own axis. The accumulation of materials and residues inside the glass tubes form yet another constriction.

Inga Danysz, Remedies for vertigo, 2019. Ausstellungsansicht Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

13/17
For "Die Freiheit, die wir meinen" (What we mean by freedom), Marie Cool Fabio Balducci has further developed a film project they first began with the French art historian Xavier Douroux in 2014. Untitled (broken sequence) consists of a series of film sequences which use minimal, almost static actions to evoke forms and create spatial situations. Interior shots are juxtaposed with exterior footage of monumental architecture. In this way, the artists call attention to the failed utopia of postmodernity, presenting images of Corviale, an almost kilometer-long concrete apartment complex on the outskirts of Rome. Central aspects of Untitled (broken sequence) include the motif of barriers, interim positions between two states of being, and a sense of irredeemable otherness. Articulating the dialectic of inside and outside, presence and absence, autonomy and control, the film enquires into the contradictions inherent to our conceptions of freedom today.

Marie Cool Fabio Balducci, Untitled (broken sequence), film started with Xavier Douroux, anna sanders films, 2014/2019. Exhibition view Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

14/17
For "Die Freiheit, die wir meinen" (What we mean by freedom), Marie Cool Fabio Balducci has further developed a film project they first began with the French art historian Xavier Douroux in 2014. Untitled (broken sequence) consists of a series of film sequences which use minimal, almost static actions to evoke forms and create spatial situations. Interior shots are juxtaposed with exterior footage of monumental architecture. In this way, the artists call attention to the failed utopia of postmodernity, presenting images of Corviale, an almost kilometer-long concrete apartment complex on the outskirts of Rome. Central aspects of Untitled (broken sequence) include the motif of barriers, interim positions between two states of being, and a sense of irredeemable otherness. Articulating the dialectic of inside and outside, presence and absence, autonomy and control, the film enquires into the contradictions inherent to our conceptions of freedom today.

Marie Cool Fabio Balducci, Untitled (broken sequence), film started with Xavier Douroux, anna sanders films, 2014/2019. Exhibition view Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

15/17
For "Die Freiheit, die wir meinen" (What we mean by freedom), Marie Cool Fabio Balducci has further developed a film project they first began with the French art historian Xavier Douroux in 2014. Untitled (broken sequence) consists of a series of film sequences which use minimal, almost static actions to evoke forms and create spatial situations. Interior shots are juxtaposed with exterior footage of monumental architecture. In this way, the artists call attention to the failed utopia of postmodernity, presenting images of Corviale, an almost kilometer-long concrete apartment complex on the outskirts of Rome. Central aspects of Untitled (broken sequence) include the motif of barriers, interim positions between two states of being, and a sense of irredeemable otherness. Articulating the dialectic of inside and outside, presence and absence, autonomy and control, the film enquires into the contradictions inherent to our conceptions of freedom today.

Marie Cool Fabio Balducci, Untitled (broken sequence), film started with Xavier Douroux, anna sanders films, 2014/2019. Exhibition view Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

16/17
For "Die Freiheit, die wir meinen" (What we mean by freedom), Marie Cool Fabio Balducci has further developed a film project they first began with the French art historian Xavier Douroux in 2014. Untitled (broken sequence) consists of a series of film sequences which use minimal, almost static actions to evoke forms and create spatial situations. Interior shots are juxtaposed with exterior footage of monumental architecture. In this way, the artists call attention to the failed utopia of postmodernity, presenting images of Corviale, an almost kilometer-long concrete apartment complex on the outskirts of Rome. Central aspects of Untitled (broken sequence) include the motif of barriers, interim positions between two states of being, and a sense of irredeemable otherness. Articulating the dialectic of inside and outside, presence and absence, autonomy and control, the film enquires into the contradictions inherent to our conceptions of freedom today.

Marie Cool Fabio Balducci, Untitled (broken sequence), film started with Xavier Douroux, anna sanders films, 2014/2019. Exhibition view Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, Kunstverein Bielefeld, 2019. Photo: Fred Dott

17/17
Press information

Events:

  • 22.11.2019, 19:00

    OPENING - DIE FREIHEIT, DIE WIR MEINEN (What we mean by freedom)

  • 23.11.2019, 17:00

    EXHIBITION CONVERSATION

    with Tyler Coburn, Marie Cool Fabio Balducci,
    Inga Danysz and Adriana Lara
    (in English language)

  • 23.11.2019, 20:00

    PAZMAKER

    by RED SOCIAL
    An event in cooperation with Artists Unlimited
    Ort: August-Schroeder-Str. 1
    33602 Bielefeld

  • 24.11.2019, 17:00

    EXHIBITION TOUR

    through the exhibition DIE FREIHEIT, DIE WIR MEINEN with Nadine Droste

  • 07.12.2019, 10:00

    CHILDREN’S ACTIVITY

    Workshop with Klaus Braun
    10:00–15:00
    Contribution: €15

  • 13.01.2020, 18:00

    The Freedom of Art

    CONVERSATION between Prof. Dr. Juliane Rebentisch (Philosophy and Aesthetics, HfG Offenbach) and Nadine Droste

  • 19.01.2020, 17:00

    PUBLIC SHORT LECTURES

    by students of Art History / Historical Image Studies
    of the University of Bielefeld
    In context of the exhibition DIE FREIHEIT, DIE WIR MEINEN (WHAT WE MEAN BY FREEDOM)

  • 25.01.2020, 10:00

    CHILDREN’S ACTIVITY

    Workshop with Klaus Braun
    10:00–15:00
    Contribution: 15 €

  • 02.02.2020, 17:00

    EXHIBITION TOUR

    through the exhibition DIE FREIHEIT, DIE WIR MEINEN with Nadine Droste

Publications and editions


Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, 2019


Die Freiheit, die wir meinen, 2019

Abbildung des Kunstwerks
Inga Danysz
Hook, 2017/2019

Image of the artwork
Adriana Lara
L’Art de L’Aoccident, 2017/2019