HOKUSPOKUS
an exhibition about illusion, mirage and other phenomena
gr_und
Seestr. 49
13347 Berlin-Wedding
with
SILKE BALTRUSCHAT (DE), RENKE BRANDT (DE), JORGE CHAMORRO (ES), TOBIAS DOSTAL (DE), DUNJA JANKOVIĆ (CR), PIA-MÉLISSA LAROCHE (FR), CARO MANTKE (DE), NIETO (CO), DORON SADJA (US), ANNEKATHRIN SCHREIBER (DE), EMIR ŠEHANOVIĆ (SB), ROBERTA WJM ANDREUCCI (IT), MARKUS WÜSTE (DE)
CURATED BY
Caro Mantke, Jorge Chamorro, Anelor Robin
DURATION
11 January – 1 February 2019
Opening hours: Wednesday – Sunday, 4 – 7pm or on appointment
DATE
11 January 2019, 7pm – 11pm
Opening & Performance by ROBERTA WJM ANDREUCCI
1 February 2019, 7pm – 11pm
Finissage & Performance by DORON SADJA
HOKUSPOKUS
an exhibition about illusion, mirage and other phenomena
“There Is No Truth. There Is Only Perception.” – Gustave Flaubert
It’s hot. It’s steamy. You’re not really sure where you are. You’re not sure about the sounds you’re hearing. The information that you discern seems misstated. Are you delusional? Are you victim of hallucination? Your vision is blurred and you’re not really sure what you’re seeing. Is that a giraffe standing at the bar or just the legs of a stool? You’re not really sure of anything anymore. At the bar, you pick a strawberry but the flavor seems to be more pungent than fruity. Is this a scientific conference or just a prank? Is that the artist? Really? Is that the artist you’re seeing or just a hologram he sent for the opening? Images shimmer like mirages in front of your eyes. A drop of sweat drips from your cheek and an ambiguous smile sets shape on your face. Yes that’s right, you have reached the entrance to Hokuspokus. An endless room of crooked mirrors. Dream or reality? Illusion or truth? This is a shadowy place, where there is no such thing as objectivity, and your own eyes are not to be trusted.
Hokuspokus invites you to enter an artistic chimera whose works call on you to squint, peek, blink, and otherwise contort your vision. What is a dream if not a collage of different realities, contexts, and objects which together make no apparent sense. We conceive this exhibition as a menagerie of visual traps, filled with artworks that challenge our perceptions and make us question the supposed truth in what we see, and to therefore consider the possibility of multiple realities. We want to give an enchantment, a counterpart to reality and an invitation to open your third eye. Things previously unknown to you will appear to reveal themselves in an epiphany. We oppose illusion and truth – the illusion masks the truth, and stops us from seeing things as they are. But maybe we should consider the illusion or the dream as a path to the veracity. This exhibition endeavors to present all known possible evidence as to what an illusion can be, from an imperfection of the senses, to an optical trick or magical phenomena.
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ARTIST TALK
13 January 2019, 4pm
We invite you to an artist talk with EMIR ŠEHANOVIĆ and more to tba
– free coffee & cake –
WORKSHOP
19 January, 3pm Hokuspocus “collage” workshop
Caro Mantke, Jorge Chamorro, Anelor Robin, curators of the exhibition join their skills to give an exceptional workshop. We will train and experiment different collage technique and unusual tools, materials to create bizarre images.
Fee: 25 euros included materials registration: anelor.robin@gmail.com
GUIDED TOUR
26 January 2019, 6pm
free
