EN

BBA Gallery presents "echoes of tomorrow. yes, today!" during Berlin Art Week 2024. The title of the exhibition plays with the juxtaposition of future resonances and the awareness of the present. It conveys a sense of immediacy and relevance. The "yes, today!" emphasises excitement and urgency and invites viewers to actively engage with the themes of memory, imagination and the evolving technological and media landscape. This title is ambiguous and encourages us to utilise the potential of today to understand yesterday, while hinting at the visions of tomorrow.

Featuring five pioneering artists from its pool who deal with the two major themes of memory and imagination, Verena Bachl (DE), Rhys Himsworth (UK), Chirag Jindal (NZ), Sven Windszus (DE) and artist collective WHYIXD (TW) present their latest artworks. In doing so, we explore the central question of how memory and imagination develop in a diverse landscape characterised by art, technology and media and how they are interwoven.

There are many artists who are curious about technology and the different media outlets available to them, and so they should be. Artists are experimental, clever and culturally hack tech and media together to produce a creative outcome. However, who is really doing it beyond the overeasy conceptualisation or taking it beyond a tech thrill. And by this, the art is tested by its ability to stand further than the short life of any given tech hype. The artists we are exhibiting at BBA Gallery defy this in a provocative way, they question our relationship with ourselves, with nature. Both imagination and memory are fundamental aspects of human cognition that have been significantly influenced by technology and media.

Using media and technology to blur boundaries, bend genres, document the unseen, taking the art to mysterious uncharted realms where imagination and memory interlace one another. These artists are using collective and personal memory to trigger imagination. Imagination, when recalled repeatedly, can internally serve as vivid or distorted memory, crystallising in the form of a personal myth or used to bring new perspectives to our collective thinking. Ambitious and skilled usage of technological tools, with adventurous orientation over the media landscape. These artists and their works put the brakes on our attention seeking economy and society. They stand in stasis and test the rythm of time.

DE

Anlässlich der Berlin Art Week 2024 präsentiert die BBA Gallery ihre Gruppenausstellung  "echoes of tomorrow. yes, today!". Der Titel der Ausstellung spielt mit der Gegenüberstellung von Zukunftsresonanzen und dem Bewusstsein der Gegenwart; er vermittelt ein Gefühl von Aktualität und Relevanz. Das "Ja, heute!" unterstreicht die Aufregung sowie Dringlichkeit und lädt den Rezipient*in ein, sich aktiv mit den Aspekten von Erinnerung, Imagination und der sich entwickelnden Technologie- und Medienlandschaft zu befassen. Der mehrdeutige Titel ermutigt, das gegenwärtige Potenzial zu nutzen, um das Vergangene zu verstehen, gleichzeitig jedoch auch die Visionen von morgen aufzuzeigen.

Verena Bachl (DE), Rhys Himsworth (UK), Chirag Jindal (NZ), Sven Windszus (DE) und das Künstlerkollektiv, WHYIXD (TWN) stellen ihre neuesten Arbeiten vor und zeigen wegweisende Werke aus ihrem Repertoire, die sich den beiden großen Themen Erinnerung und Imagination widmen. Dabei gehen sie der zentralen Frage nach, wie sich Erinnerung und Imagination in einer vielfältigen, von Kunst, Technologie und Medien geprägten Landschaft entwickeln und wie sie miteinander verwoben sind.

Viele Künstler*innen sind zurecht sowohl neugierig als auch wissbegierig auf die gegenwärtige Technologie und Medien, die ihnen zur Verfügung stehen. 

Doch wer schafft es wirklich über die allzu simple Konzeptualisierung oder über den technischen Nervenkitzel hinauszuwachsen? Die Aufgabe der Kunst besteht darin, die Kurzlebigkeit des jeweiligen Technik-Hypes zu überdauern. Die in der BBA Gallery ausgestellten Künstler*innen widersetzen sich dem auf provokante Weise, sie hinterfragen unsere Beziehung zu uns selbst und die zur Umwelt. Sowohl die Vorstellungskraft als auch die Erinnerung sind grundlegende Aspekte der menschlichen Wahrnehmung, die durch Technologie und Medien erheblich beeinflusst wurden.

Medien und Technologie werden eingesetzt, um Grenzen zu verwischen, Genres zu deformieren, das Unsichtbare zu dokumentieren und die Kunst in geheimnisvolle, unerforschte Bereiche zu lenken, in denen sich Vorstellungskraft und Erinnerung gegenseitig durchdringen. Die genannten Künstler*innen nutzen das kollektive und persönliche Gedächtnis zugunsten der angeregten Irrealität. Unsere Vorstellungskraft kann bei wiederholten Abruf als lebendige oder verzerrte Erinnerung dienen, sich in Form eines persönlichen Glaubensatzes verfestigen oder genutzt werden, um neue Perspektiven in unser kollektives Denken zu integrieren. Ambitionierter und geschickter Umgang mit technologischen Werkzeugen, mit gewagter Orientierung an der Medienwelt; diese Künstler*innen und ihre Werke bremsen unsere aufmerksamkeits-bedürftige Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft aus. Sie bleiben im Stillstand und testen das Metrum der Zeit.

Media partner

Throughout history, art editions have been a means to utilise the power of image repetition for greater accessibility and availability. Now more than ever, it is imperative to provide the public with affordable contemporary art pieces. With this aim, this holiday season BBA presents BBA Editions, a group exhibition featuring a wide variety of artists represented by the gallery including some works from our previous Photography and Artist prize competitions.

Editions have a rich global history with engraving in Europe and 13th century traditional woodcut printmaking in Japan and Asia. In response to the rising prominence of print mass-media in the 20th Century, many artists such as the German expressionists Ludwig Kirschner and Emil Nolde re-appropriated printmaking techniques to exert agency over the distribution and value of their works. To this day, print editions continue to be a prominent medium in the art world, as a crossroads between classic technique and contemporary accessibility. 

Contemporary editions have evolved from traditional printmaking to encompass a wide range of formats including photography. BBA Editions brings together all kinds of practices such as painting, sculptures, photography, digital art and more, to create a diverse assemblage of works that promote accessibility within the art world. People from all walks of life create art under a diverse human experience. It follows that the enriching opportunity to own a unique piece of art should be openly available.

Single works can often feel costly for first time buyers. Editions with lower price points bridge this gap while also retaining the authenticity of the works. Each piece belonging to an edition carries within itself traces of the artist’s peculiarity and character.  We want to inspire the next generation of collectors by celebrating the creatives of tomorrow. 

The editions are readily available to purchase in person at the gallery. To foster accessibility in the art market, BBA is soon launching a brand new online store through which the public can purchase works from editions. Editions provide the opportunity for a special Christmas gift for your art lover friends and family; with artworks that are both compact and affordable.

Artists
Kristoffer Axén, Rómulo Celdrán, Giulietta Coates, Mario Ermoli, Vincent van Gaalen, Rhys Himsworth, Chirag Jindal, Renata Kudlacek, Ming Lu, Tobias Molitor, Kaleef Oladele Lawal, Mark Peterman, Susanne Piotter, Vishal Shah, Martin Stranka, Heiko Tiemann, Olga Wagemans, Diana Wolzak.

Artists
Renata Kudlacek
Rhys Himsworth

This year, BBA Gallery is delighted to be part of ARTMUC 2022 autumn edition - Bavaria’s largest art fair. Showcasing contemporary works, ArtMuc comprises over 250 artists working across a range of mediums from painting, sculpture, 3D pieces, photography and more. 

In a diverse programme offering insight into the growing German art market, BBA will exhibit the works of Berlin-based artists Rhys Himsworth and Gallery Director Renata Kudlacek whose central themes of nature subvert a linear perception of time.

Both mixed media artists, Himsworth and Kudlacek unravel the cultural significance of nature and re-interpret the historical significance from a contemporary angle. The romantic, dream-like works of landscapes and flowers subtly reference consumerist excess and fast-moving, mass-production. Himsworth sources and repurposes disused electronic waste which provide the surface over which a self-developed UV inkjet printer prints stock photography landscapes. Re-connects materials with their original locations. Resembling late Northern European Baroque with autumnal tones, Kudlacek’s fine art prints and hand-made screen-prints depict flora and fauna on the beautiful point of decay and echo the rapid consumption of nature.