20 Nov 2012

Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

ALEXANDRE SINGH / ASSEMBLY INSTRUCTIONS
Since 2008, Alexandre Singh has been working on the series Assembly Instructions. With the presentation of five versions, including two newly created and shown for the first time, the Kunstverein Wiesbaden is organising the artist's first institutional solo exhibition in Germany. The Assembly Instructions are initialized by topic searches and conversations with people from different fields of activity then processed by Singh to wall-filling diagrams. The modules for this are playfully detailed photocopied pictures and text collages which are connected to each other with dotted pencil lines on the wall to half-fictional stories, which invite the viewer to pave his path through the ramified and detailed web of narrations.
Alexandre Singh was born in Bordeaux in France in 1980. His works, which encompass a wide expressive range, which move discursively through different disciplines such as art, literature, philosophy, performance, video and many others, are represented in major public and private collections and were presented in group and solo exhibitions around the world. Alexandre Singh is currently in a residency at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam and is working on a theater play. He lives and works in New York and Paris.

With friendly support of Institut français Deutschland


NANECI YURDAGÜL / BURQUOI
In his work Naneci Yurdagül reflects, subtly and ironically, on social, cultural and political situations and their change, which always have traces of his own biography. One focus of his artistic engagement are topics on national and religious identity, migration, social exclusion, cultural appropriation and mistrust. They are constantly picked up and are treated critically, often in relation to current public debates, to intervene in the social discourse. His artistic expression includes almost all media such as performance, film, painting, photography, sculpture and installation, setting specific incentives.
For the exhibition in Wiesbaden Naneci Yurdagül shows several installations, focusing 'exemplary' on the phenomenon of cultural appropriation and opening up new perspectives on the supposedly alien, by holding up a mirror to the familiar. The exhibition, designed by the artist as a world of experience, can be visited and experienced by the visitors only in a burqa. Alone one room of the exhibition, which is inspired by Keith Haring's idea of a 'Pop Shop' and in which editions by the artist can be purchased, is accessible without a burqa. In this way, Yurdagül ironically draws a border between secular and divine localities.
Naneci Yurdagül was born in Frankfurt/Main, Germany in 1979. He studied art and performance at the Université de Vincennes in Paris, the Master of Fine Arts Program of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Tel Aviv and at the Staatliche Hochschule für bildende Künste, Städelschule in Frankfurt/ Main. Here he began 2005 in the sculpture class of Professor Tobias Rehberger graduating in 2011. He took part in exhibitions in Germany and Israel and lives and works in Frankfurt/Main.

With friendly support of Naspa

Curated by Sara Stehr and Elke Gruhn

For more information please visit the Kunstverein online:
www.kunstverein-wiesbaden.de