In September 2023, a new series of solo presentations of young artists will begin at the Julia Stoschek Foundation under the name DOUBLE FEATURE, which will be shown simultaneously in Berlin and Düsseldorf. The first exhibition, Wish You a Lovely Sunday (2021) and Wohin? (2022), recent films by the Berlin-based artist Young-jun Tak. Both works were made in Berlin and explore how place, architecture, movement and belief inform categories such as community and queerness.
Fig. above: Young-jun Tak, Wish You a Lovely Sunday, 2021, Video, 18’38’’, colour, sound. Videostill. Courtesy of the artist
Wish You a Lovely Sunday (2021) contrasts two places in Berlin: the church at Südstern and the queer club SchwuZ. The artist invited two choreographers and two dancers to develop choreographies in pairs for these two spaces. He also assigned each team a different Bach piece for four-hand piano. When the choreographies were finished after several days of rehearsals, Tak swapped the originally assigned spaces for the filming, so that the participants were forced to spontaneously adapt their choreographies to the architectural features and atmosphere of the other space. A dialogue between the two places emerges, and religion and club culture find themselves – unlikely as it may seem – in close proximity.
Tak is interested in the similarities between church and club in that both have specific rituals, norms of behaviour and attitudes at work that are closely tied to the respective space and its function. In the course of Wish You a Lovely Sunday, the physical presence of the participants and the way in which they find their way in their respective surroundings begins to change the meaning of the respective space. Ultimately, tensions become visible that are not perceivable at first glance. In the church, for example, a feeling of longing and desire, refusal and prohibition is inevitably expressed in the game of mutual gazing and looking away between the two protagonists roaming around the columns and the altar.
In the film Wohin? the camera focuses on the rear-view mirrors of cars driving along the autobahn around Berlin. In the course of the film, various objects dangling from the mirrors move into the frame, be they Christian rosaries, Buddhist prayer bead necklaces or the typically German room scent dispenser, the miracle tree. The rear-view mirrors themselves show the situation in the back seats: a man is looking out of the window, checking his phone or dozing off; two other men are kissing in love. Before filming, Tak had talked with his actors about the different aspects of the German autobahn – an ideological project of the Third Reich, typical of the national infrastructure, but equally a playground for projections of hyper-masculinity as well as a significant place for gay cruising. The soundtrack, for which organist Andreas Sieling from Berlin Cathedral and British countertenor Tim Morgan reinterpret Kraftwerk’s legendary 1974 piece “Autobahn”, further underscores these different facets. While Sieling pulls the stops of his huge organ with over 7,000 pipes up to 13 metres long, Morgan repeats the simple text “Autobahn” in fluent recitation and high pitch – in complete contrast to the mechanical and militaristic rhythms of the organ.
The Double Feature series is curated by Line Ajan and Lisa Long.
Young-jun Tak (born 1989 in Seoul, South Korea) is concerned with the socio-cultural and psychological mechanisms underlying belief systems. Tak mixes different media, techniques and themes and uses obfuscation as critique. In his videos, sculptures and installations, he often shows the human body in the context of polarising norms and conventions. Tak’s solo exhibitions have been at Wanås Konst (Knislinge, Sweden, 2023), O-Overgaden (Copenhagen, 2023), Efremidis (Berlin, 2022), SOX (Berlin, 2022) and Fragment (Moscow, 2021). Tak has participated in international exhibitions such as the Lyon Biennial (2022), the Berlin Biennial (2020) and the Istanbul Biennial (2017). He currently lives and works in Berlin.
WHERE?
Julia Stoschek Foundation
Leipziger Strasse 60
10117 Berlin
WHEN?
Opening: Wednesday, 13 September, 6 – 10 p.m.
Exhibition duration: 14 September 2023 – 17 December 2023
Saturday and Sunday, 12 – 18 p.m.
Special opening hours Berlin Art Week:
13 September, 6am-2pm, 14-17 September, 12pm-6pm
German-language guided tour: Sunday, 3 p.m.
English-language guided tour: Saturday, 3 p.m.
COST? Admission 5 euros. Registration at www.jsfoundation.art
