Visit to LUNA KINO by Pauline Curnier Jardin, UTILITY FOR THE SOUL by Aleksandra Kasuba & HAY CUERPOS CANSADOS POR EL VIAJE QUE BUSCAN ENRAIZARSE by Sofía Salazar Rosales at ChertLüdde

“In the reimagined Luna Kino, Curnier Jardin uses her unique ability to build on ambiguities, troubles and taboos to form her interpretations of histories, stories and characters. Deconstructing monumental events in German history and their surrounding discourses, her immersive installation creates a multiplex of visuals that exposes elements of society that might otherwise remain hidden or overlooked. As a director, filmmaker and sculptor, her wide-ranging practice has seen her disrupt hierarchies and explore the ambiguities of normative narratives while closely confronting the margins. These brazenly profound works expose the complexities of feminisms, traditions, rituals and popular culture. Materializing into installations that combine architecture, filmmaking, sound, set design and drawing, Curnier Jardin’s works are collaborative experiences involving other artists and professionals. As is the case of Luna Kino, which is the fruit of collaboration with the scenographer and costume designer Rachel Garcia who the artist has a longstanding partnership with in creating universes, environments and installations, the artist Quirin Bäumler and the sound designer Antonio Giannantonio.

The exhibition at the gallery follows as its guiding trail Kasuba’s 1970 artist book Utility for the Soul, created for the open competition Projects Outside Art launched by Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), an organization established in 1967 to develop collaborations between artists and engineers, inspired by dramatic advancements in technologies during the Space Age (1). In Utility for the Soul, Kasuba imagines a blueprint for a Retreat House, a “proposal for enlightened corporations with a concern for the social implications resulting from a prolonged neglect of human needs in our mechanized society.” Utility for the Soul would become a sort of an artist’s manifesto, implementing the utopian goal at the core of her research, the search for a harmonious world and a peaceful dialogue between humankind, nature and technology. 

Objects, often displaced by travel and transport, are selected by Salazar Rosales for their social and economic connotations. Using various processes that enhance their material quality, she preserves, fossilizes or reproduces these objects. Implementing direct and corporal approaches, her sculptures contain strong personal messages. Focusing on the physical and emotional weight her objects hold, the works are able to resist the overwhelming effects of social injustice and colonial erasure.” (Text excerpts from the press releases by courtesy of ChertLüdde)

Founded in 2008 by Jennifer Chert, the gallery was joined in its development by Florian Lüdde in 2016 to become ChertLüdde. After 13 years in the Kreuzberg district and now located in Schöneberg on the grounds of a former costume and party decoration store, ChertLüdde hosts a dynamic program of international and Berlin-based contemporary artists, a parallel project space, an artist archive and a bookshop of curated artist publications and catalogues.

BUNGALOW opened in 2019 as a space for a new generation of artists, invited to develop site-specific projects. Frequently marking the first solo exhibition of the artists in Germany, BUNGALOW presents about four exhibitions each year in conjunction with the gallery’s program.

The Mail Art Archive of Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt and Robert Rehfeldt is a long term exhibition and publication project presenting the archive of Mail Art works collected by the two German artists from the beginning of the 1970s until the early 1990s. The archive is available for consultation upon appointment.

More information on the ChertLüdde Website.