FELLBACH.- The 15th edition of the
Triennial of Small Sculpture Fellbach gathers over 50 artistic positions. Curator Elke aus dem Moore raises fundamental questions. Based on a vitality of matter and an effective power of objects, artistic positions are presented that deal with socially highly topical questions of ownership, interconnectedness, restitution and responsibility. The Triennial addresses these questions in a narrative parcours in the Alte Kelter, the traditional exhibition venue of the Triennale, as well as in a forest piece and in a digital exhibition space.
What happens when objects leave their contexts, when they are brought into other contexts? What relationships can art make visible and what resonances are made possible by it? The exhibition poses many such questions and provides answers, among other things, in an extensive program of events.
The three-part series Resonances - Listening to Things More Often was developed by Nikola Hartl and presents different perspectives on the themes of the exhibition in film screenings, talks, performances.
DO July 14, 2022
# 2 RESONANCES: LISTEN TO THINGS MORE OFTEN
To the will of the spirits stronger than we
Property & Legitimacy, Part 1
6 pm
Conversation between Brenna Bhandar & Hannah Voegele
FR July 15, 2022
# 2 RESONANCES: LISTEN TO THINGS MORE OFTEN
To the will of the spirits stronger than we
Property & Legitimacy, Part 2
5 pm
Input: NO BEAUTIFUL ARCHIVE - Intangible Cultural Heritage aka Nuray Demir & Michael Annoff
Lecture-Performance
6 pm
Sculpture Forest Sanctuary: Nature belonging to itself / Sich selbst gehörende Natur
Inpurs: Antje Majewski & Dr. Irene H. Schöne
September 22 24, 2022 (tbc)
# 3 RESONANCES: LISTEN TO THINGS MORE OFTEN
Those who are dead are never gone
Sounding Objects
From the beginning, the Triennial was developed in close collaboration with three artists: Dr. Memory Biwa (Windhoek), Antje Majewski (Berlin) and Gabriel Rossell Santillán (Mexico-City, Berlin). As co-curators, they have developed their own contributions within the framework of the Triennalel and in turn invited artists to participate.
For Memory Biwa these are: Elisia Nghidishange, Philisa Zibi, Thania Petersen, Vitjitua Ndjiharine, and Stephané Edith Conradie.
Biwa's curatorial project is dedicated to the charge and charge of objects that can change and even disappear, especially against a background of forced migration of objects, through war, robbery or other acts of violence. Why do museums exhibit these objects, with what intention? In February 2019, cultural objects looted by Germany during the colonial period were returned to the state of Namibia for the first time.
This process of restitution has been a much discussed and highly political topic for several years. How do losses of objects affect people, entire communities? Can the charge of objects, their energy, be extinguished? Are there possibilities for reactivation? Are there reverberations between different times and places?
Antje Majewski's project also touches the core of the Triennial's questions and offers a concrete solution with performative power. For Sculpture Forest Sanctuary she has invited Paweł Althamer, Agnieszka Brzeżańska, Alioune Diouf, Cecilia Edefalk, Gregor Prugger, Paulina Kondraskov, and Paweł Freisler.
Together they address the issue of ownership of life. Majewski explores the possibility, or rather impossibility, of owning such a multi-dimensional, multi-faceted multiplicity as a forest and trimming it down to one's own interests. As a counter-proposal to deforestation, she installs a group of sculptures in a forest area. Connected to the installation of the figures in the forest is an agreement that has legal consequences and spiritual significance: The forest may not be instrumentalized hereafter, used as a resource, or even entered by humans.
Gabriel Rossell Santillán's project resonates between different times and cultures around the Pacific. He invites us to a time when the Pacific was considered the center of the earth. The starting point of this journey is a tapestry made between 1585 and 1590 in northern India, near the region of Fatehpur Sikri. What is unusual about this tapestry is the many different artistic styles, which refer to different cultural traditions from all over the Pacific region. Today, elements of this carpet are missing. With Lizza May David, Keiko Kimoto, Karen Michelsen-Castañón, Antonio Paucar, and Luis Ortiz, artists* from the Pacific region (Japan, Philippines, Colombia, Peru, Mexico), Gabriel Rossell Santillán has dedicated himself to working out the missing parts of the carpet. The newly created carpet works speak of colonialist relations of exploitation, of the destruction and desacralization of important spiritual places through industrial exploitation and privatization, but also of the displacement of indigenous knowledge. As this project demonstrates, objects, including artistic objects, are always embedded in social contexts.
The work of Colombian artist Nijolė ivickas, born in 1925, who represents an essential artistic position in the Triennial, will be presented parallel to the Triennial in a solo exhibition at the Galerie der Stadt Fellbach from June 9 to September 4. Born in Lithuania, she studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart with Gollwitzer and Baumeister from 1946 to 1950 and lived in Fellbach for a time. From the 1950s until her death in 2018, ivickas lived in Colombia. Her works will be shown for the first time in Germany at the Triennial.
The Triennial is also looking forward to collaborations with Stuttgart's cultural institutions:
Artist Chiara Bugatti will show her dance study Rehearsing brutality until it is totally destroyed with dancers from the Stuttgart Ballet on September 27 at the Alte Kelter.
A collaboration with and at ifa Gallery Stuttgart from September 22-24 titled When gathering ruins through ceremony, objects become songs presents the multidisciplinary sound duo Pungwe, consisting of co-curator Memory Biwa and Robert 'Chi' Machiri.
The catalog The Vibration of Things brings together artistic, literary, and theoretical texts by Elke aus dem Moore, Memory Biwa, Antje Majewski, Paz Guevara, Jane Bennett, Ailton Krenak, Hervé Yamguen, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Sharon Dodua Otoo, Amogelang Maledu, Laura Ganda, Mara Johanna Kölmel, and Marie T. Martin, among others. In addition to extensive information on the artistic positions, the catalog summarizes theoretical and poetic impulses on the theme of the Triennial and opens up perspectives on the diverse thematic fields and areas of our lives that are touched by the vibration of things.
The catalog is edited by Elke aus dem Moore, Jandra Böttger and the Cultural Office of the City of Fellbach and is published by Archive Books. It has 292 pages, over 100 color illustrations and is available at the exhibition, in bookstores, through Archive Books and the Cultural Office of the City of Fellbach.
For the first time, the Triennial of Small Sculpture Fellbach also takes place in digital space
Part of the 15th edition of the Triennial of Small Sculpture Fellbach will take place in a digital exhibition space for the first time. Sculptural objects today are no longer created only through the physical processing of material, but also with the inclusion of algorithms, specific softwares, and let us rethink the concept of sculptural plasticity. Artists such as Nora Al Badri, Mary Maggic, Mitra Wakil & Fabian Hesse as well as the Kenyan artist Nkhensani Mkhari show their sculptures in both physical and virtual exhibition space.
Curator: Elke aus dem Moore
In cooperation with Memory Biwa, Antje Majewski, and Gabriel Rossell Santillán
Participating artists: Nora Al-Badri, Paweł Althamer, Monira Al Qadiri, Rheim Alkadhi, Apparatus 22, Sabian Baumann, Zora Berweger, Lisa Biedlingmaier, Dineo Seshee Bopape, Agnieszka Brzeżańska, Chiara Bugatti, Alice Cantaluppi, Stephané Edith Conradie, Lizza May David, George Demir, Alioune Diouf, Cecilia Edefalk, Lamin Fofana, Paweł Freisler, Simone Gilges, Goutam Ghosh, Anawana Haloba, Mohsen Hazrati, Myriam Holme, Irma Hünerfauth, Alan Hunt, Keiko Kimoto, Paulina Kondraskov, Mary Maggic, Antje Majewski, Manuel Mathieu, Karen Michelsen Castañón, Nkhensani Mkhari, Nadia Myre, Vitjitua Ndjiharine, Jan Nikolai Nelles, Elisia Nghidishange, Lucas Odahara, Luis Ortiz, Antonio Paucar, Thania Petersen, Gregor Prugger, Tiare Ribeaux, Gabriel Rossell Santillán, Nijolė ivickas, Erik Sturm, Vivan Sundaram, Antonio Tarsis, Jol Thoms, Viron Erol Vert, Athena Vida, Mitra Wakil & Fabian Hesse, Annette Wehrmann, Hervé Yamguen, Philisa Zibi