Opening: Friday 9.2.2024, 7 pm
Speakers: Dr. Carola Brückner, District Councillor for Culture,
Dr. Ralf F. Hartmann, Artistic Director ZAK
The term “anti-landscapes” describes desolate areas that are hostile to human life – also as a result of economic exploitation. Value attributions are applied beyond resources to people and ways of life: as less valuable, less human. The exhibition AntE-Landscapes by Abie Franklin (* 1995 in Jerusalem) takes up this entanglement of the micro and macro levels on the basis of two current groups of works:
“A piece of the pie” zooms in on fragmented landscapes. The works form a closed system and consist of materials that humans extract from them, such as coal, tar and rare earths.
“Frontiers” shows us an open series of lines and nets that structure the space. As modular elements, however, they are not fixed, but invite visitors to reconfigure constellations both in the works and in the space itself. Empty spaces are exposed and nodes created.
Franklin’s exhibition title is based on the Latin “ante: before” and focuses on the temporal-spatial conditions of when and where life can begin. The de/reconstruction of spatial relationships is created here by focusing on boundaries. These reorganizations of space can thus also be related to the geopolitical level of meaning of extractivist struggles for minerals.
Based on a structuralist examination of the dynamics of power AntE-Landscapes poses questions about the possibilities and limits of agency.
With the kind support of
