BERLIN.- Light Art Space announced its artistic programme for 2021, featuring major new commissions by Robert Irwin and Jakob Kudsk Steensen. The commissions will transform the renowned Berlin institutions Kraftwerk Berlin and Halle am Berghain and sit alongside LAS Online, a new series of artist interventions featuring Jenna Sutela and Meriem Bennani, which will be available to global audiences through the LAS website.
LAS is a non-profit art foundation that works across art, science and new technologies. Championing experimental projects and new exhibition formats, LAS is committed to commis- sioning and exhibiting engaging, immersive experiences that are accessible to wider audien- ces both in Berlin and internationally. Conceived by Amira Gad, recently appointed Head of Programmes, together with LAS Director Dr Bettina Kames, the 2021 programme will continue LAS’ mission to bring together groundbreaking interdisciplinary artists to create unique presentations which challenge perceptions of the present and stimulate new visions of the future.
Dr Bettina Kames, Director of LAS, has said: ‘We are thrilled to announce our forthcoming artistic programme and look forward to bringing these visionary artists to new audiences. With remarkable new commissions and site-specific installations, visitors will enjoy unique experiences in dialogue with two of Berlin’s most famous music and arts venues, Kraftwerk Berlin and Halle am Berghain. They highlight LAS’ commitment to breaking down boundaries within the arts to work more holistically and to raise the bar of exhibition presentations.’
Amira Gad, Head of Programmes at LAS, added: ‘In 2021, our programme kicks off with renowned artist Robert Irwin, celebrated as a forefather of the Light and Space movement. In the summer, for his first exhibition in Berlin, we will be transported into the animated world of Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s immersive installations which will transform the Halle am Berghain into a portal to a past world of wetlands and extinct species, revealing Berlin’s origins as a swamp. At LAS, we work with artists to highlight their experiments within artistic practices, revealing interdisciplinary and unique approaches.’
2021 Programme Highlights
Robert Irwin
April – May 2021, Kraftwerk Berlin
Curated by Amira Gad & Ruth Kißling
LAS will present Light and Space (Kraftwerk Berlin), a major site-specific installation by pioneering American artist Robert Irwin (b. 1928, USA) at Kraftwerk Berlin. The work will form part of Irwin’s Light and Space series, which the artist first conceived in 2007. Commissioned by LAS, this will be the largest artwork by Irwin to be exhibited in Europe to date. Irwin is celebrated as a forefather of the Light and Space movement, which originated in southern California in the 1960s. Over his prolific, five-decade career, Irwin has become best known for his site-conditioned artworks which use the effects of light to explore human perception and the use of space. Reflecting on the historical development of light art, the new LAS commis- sion will transform Kraftwerk Berlin’s impressive architecture. Fluorescent tubes will be spread in abstract rhythmic patterns across both sides of a monumental, freestanding 16-by-16 metre wall. As well as its unique scale, this new piece will also see Irwin combine white light and blue-coloured fluorescent tubes for the first time. Light and Space (Kraftwerk Berlin) will allude to Irwin’s painterly experiments of the 1960s, as well as his more recent examinations of the conditions of colour perception, offering visitors an immersive experience of the artist’s experiments with light and space.
Jakob Kudsk Steensen
July – September 2021, Halle am Berghain, Berlin
Guest curated by Emma Enderby (Chief Curator at The Shed, New York), assisted by Elisabeth Stumpf
Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen (b. 1987, Denmark) will transform the legendary venue Halle am Berghain with a new installation simulating lost natural worlds and inviting visitors to experience the local landscape throughout time. Kudsk Steensen is known for his environmental storytelling, using animation, mixed reality and virtual reality to reimagine overlooked ecologies. For this new LAS commission, the artist will create an immersive installation using LED animations, sound and water to explore Berlin’s origin as a swamp formed by a 10,000-year-old glacial valley. Each of the artist’s projects involves extensive fieldwork and, for this exhibition, Kudsk Steensen is conducting research in Germany’s wetlands to document their ecosystem. The resulting installation will create a portal between the relics of the Ice Age and today’s wetlands, enabling audiences to vividly see, hear and explore the otherwise unseen natural histories beneath their feet.
LAS Online
As part of LAS’ commitment to supporting artists using digital technologies, 2021 will see a new series of artist interventions exhibited on the LAS website. The ongoing digital program- me, LAS Online, began in December 2020 with a feature of Jenna Sutela, and offers audien- ces an engaging introduction to cutting-edge artists’ works, which tackle themes ranging from sustainability to biotechnology and outer space. These works have been adapted for digital and online display and Sutela’s project is available to view now.
The 2021 programme will include Meriem Bennani’s artistic response to Western immigration and surveillance policies (February – March 2021); Nkisi, who will invite users to listen to a soundtrack of the cosmos (April – May 2021); and Omsk Social Club’s interactive adventure game, challenging visitors to choose their own path and venture into the unknown (June – July 2021).
