For her exhibition ‘Value Economy’ at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, which will be on display from 8 November 2024, Andrea Pichl has designed an architectural installation that deals with the topic of economic transfer between West and East Germany and the transformation after 1989.
The audience becomes part of the staging, which incorporates building forms and everyday objects, mostly standardised and mass-produced. Detached from their original context, Pichl subjects the objects and spaces to critical reflection. He examines which image of man and which ideas of social coexistence are inscribed in them: Where do invisible structures such as state power, capital flows and historical upheavals manifest themselves, where does the public sphere end and privacy begin, when does a utopian vision become a dystopian reality?
Image above: Andrea Pichl, Zeichnung aus der Serie „Stasizentrale 1-30“, 2020/21 Buntstift auf Papier, 29,7 x 21 cm © Andrea Pichl / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024
Andrea Pichl (born 1964, lives and works in Berlin) focusses on the architecture and design of post-modernism.
This concerns social housing complexes as well as lattices, fences and decorative elements from the exterior and doors, textiles and carpets from the interior. These anonymously designed forms define, shape or limit space, but are barely perceptible due to their inconspicuousness. Based on research, Pichl develops installations, sculptures, drawings and photographs. Using strategies of appropriation and transfer, the artist directs the viewer’s gaze to individual parts, fragments or excerpts.
Following Naama Tsabar’s solo exhibition (until 22 September 2024), Pichl’s spatial installation is the second contemporary position to be shown in parallel to the permanent presentation of Joseph Beuys in the Kleihueshalle at Hamburger Bahnhof and refers to his work.
The symposium ‘The West did not have to arrive in the East!’, which will take place on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 November 2024 at Hamburger Bahnhof to mark the 35th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall, is dedicated to the transformation of the art world in the aftermath of 1989/1990.
WHEN?
Vernissage: Thursday, 7 November 2024, 7 pm
Exhibition dates: Thursday, 7 November 2024 – Sunday, 04 May 2025
WHERE?
Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart
Invalidenstraße 50
10557 Berlin
