“Everyone can do something with the topic,” says Benita Meißner about the exhibition series “Being in Between.” Whether it’s a thought, a state or a feeling – being in between can be many things and mean something different for each person. For example, the transition from youth to adulthood, the search for a home, or life itself, as a state between birth and death. In any case, the complex term stimulates reflection and brings with it far-reaching associations.
The nine individual artistic presentations in the DG Kunstraum also negotiate the in-betweenness in its different facets. In keeping with the diversity of the topic, curator Benita Meißner gave the artists a lot of freedom. She only gave them the first concept as a basis – “and then I had to let go so as not to stop the further development of the design.” The name of the exhibition location is appropriate, “Possibility Space”, where the third installation in the series can be seen until April 25th. The artist Viron Erol Vert primarily deals with migration and culture as well as perspectives of one’s own and that of the foreign.
Here, in the darkened art room, bright light shines from the ceiling onto a shiny silver mirror, which casts bright reflections onto the wooden floor. The artist’s dark voice sounds from offstage, accompanied by spherical sounds. Viron Erol Vert reads out the spelling alphabet in seven languages, which he speaks himself due to his intercultural background. “V come Venezia”, ”T for Theodore”, “C like Charles”, and further with the Greek, Arabic, Hebrew and Turkish alphabets.
The artist’s intense migration history repeatedly finds its way into his works, including in the DG Kunstraum. On the wall hangs a small three-sided travel mirror from the 1920s that belonged to migrants. It stands for being on the move, and therefore also for being in between. When approaching the object, a fivefold reflection occurs, inviting visitors to take a longer look from different perspectives.
The artist labeled each of the three mirror sides with a word: “Else”, “Where” and “From”. Depending on your point of view, new meanings emerge, which leads to moments of irritation and questions about belonging and identity. “Where do I come from, where am I, where am I going? That should be reflected here,” explains the curator. At the same time, the number three is associated with reflections on the “self”, as in Sigmund Freud’s instance model, which divides the human psyche into “ego”, “id” and “superego”. Like the number seven, which the artist alludes to in the sound collage, the number three is known for its significance as the number of perfection. The installation thus oscillates between states of in-betweenness and completion, which creates an extraordinary tension.
The video work “Berliner Zimmer” by Sonya Schönberger can currently be seen in the “Discourse Room”, which remains throughout the entire series.
(Photo: Gerald von Foris)
Through Bettina Khano’s intervention “Hemdchen”, the exhibition area is separated from the “discourse space”. A changing film program is shown there, which correlates in various ways with the works in the “space of possibilities”. Running parallel to Viron Erol Vert’s concept is the eleven-hour video work “Berliner Zimmer” by Sonya Schönberger. As Berlin residents tell their stories, his exhibition is complemented and contrasted at the same time. Because many of the Vitae are about biographical changes, about the self and about different paths in life.
“Being in between” becomes an opportunity to look beyond your own horizon and combine diverse perspectives. The scientific perspective also comes into play here. Andrea Wolfensberger examines the relationship between the individual and the whole, particularly in swarm intelligence and self-organizing systems. In contrast, Manuela Illera’s feminist works primarily focus on decoloniality, queerness and subversive identities.
The artist discussions also contribute to the series’ goal of depicting in-betweenness in its comprehensive sense. Because the DG Kunstraum also wants to be a place for gatherings, emphasizes Benita Meißner: “It’s important for us to bring people together and invite them to dream. Viron Erol Vert does exactly that: he develops themes in a poetic way.”
DG Kunstraum – “Being in Between”, Tuesday to Friday, 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., until December 12th, DG Kunstraum Discourse Present, Finkenstraße 4