HAMBURG.- For his first institutional solo exhibition, and Others who wish to remain anonymous, commissioned by Kunstverein in Hamburg, Prateek Vijan is developing an expansive installation that negotiates the material, judicial, bureaucratic, and ideological apparatus through which colonial loot is kept and circulated within museum collections. Through sculptures, installations, and films, Vijan explores how colonial legacies might be confronted and disrupted. To this end, he has developed the concept of counterloot, an analytical framework for identifying the sociopolitical constellations that determine the legitimacy of colonial ownership claims. Counterloot aims to restore agency to those affected by colonial history today, to reclaim what was stolen—without seeking permission from those in power. For its implementation, Vijan draws upon the narrative structure and aesthetics of cinema including the so called heist films, a genre that is characterised by the meticulous planning of a theft.

The entrance to and Others who wish to remain anonymous has been moved to the rear of the Kunstverein’s building. With this intervention, Vijan brings attention to the unseen forms of labour that are essential to making a shared public sphere, e.g. within a museum or a restaurant, possible but are deliberately concealed and denied recognition. The relocation of the visitor’s entrance prompts an inquiry into the visible and invisible flows of labour within an institution, their relation to the public sphere, and the underlying dynamics of power.

Two connected spaces within and Others who wish to remain anonymous address the permeability and accessibility of different social spheres. The first, a steel-clad room, references the aesthetics of a cold storage facility. Within this space Vijan’s sculptures quote the hallways of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, laying out escape routes for a heist of colonial objects in the collection. The second space mimics an Indian restaurant with elements of an industrial kitchen, chairs, and tables. This restaurant within the exhibition functions as a metaphor for those spaces, that are the stages for the performative production of a shared public, excluding those who work behind the scenes. Vijan has engraved detailed scenes of the security infrastructure of the Victoria and Albert Museum onto wall- mounted steel refrigerator doors, suggesting further cold storage spaces.

Additionally, three CCTV monitors display footage from the perspective of an animal restlessly moving towards the exits of a museum, conveying a feeling of entrapment and displacement. Leaving the exhibition, an installation of four screens hangs from the ceiling, each showing a bird of prey. They watch over the foyer, furthering the exploration of observing and being observed, predator and prey.

Prateek Vijan (*1991, lives in Hamburg and Berlin) studied in New Delhi and Hamburg. He has received several prestigious scholarships and grants, including the working scholarship for fine arts from the Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg. His works were exhibited mainly in Germany, his latest exhibition took place in 2024 at Neue Kunst in Hamburg. In 2021 he was amongst the artists shown at the Kunstverein in Hamburg’s exhibition Proof of Stake.

Curated by Dr Martin Karcher.

Olga Balema
The Distance
08.02. — 27.04.2025

Olga Balema’s Loop series finds form through the artist’s intuitive and imaginative exploration of the material language she has developed over the past two decades. The sculptures are made by bending and fusing transparent sheets of polycarbonate. While begun in the studio in New York, they are configured and finished in the exhibition space in Hamburg. The exhibition title, The Distance, alludes to both the physical and conceptual gaps between beginning and presenting work, as well as the way the sculptures come to appear, first viewed from afar and then upon closer inspection. Balema’s sculptures interact with their surroundings, at once informed by them while also framing and holding them. Through their reflective and transparent surfaces, they invite the space around them in.

Depending on the perspective, they dissolve almost entirely against the gallery floor and walls, appearing almost invisible but for a spectral outline along their edges. In other moments, they catch and reflect light, mirroring the geometric architecture of the Kunstverein, which then flows and fractures through the interplay of organic soft surfaces, broken geometry, and the harsh cracks of the sculptures. These shifting perceptual experiences unfold and overlap as viewers move throughout the space. The choreography between being seen and disappearing is central to the work and reverberates in the display of the exhibition. Some sculptures are accompanied by plinths, which have been constructed for the show. Their stark white geometry echoes the logic of exhibiting to which the polycarbonate work only partially submits, as it lays flat across a plinth or leans against the rear of a column. In groups or clusters, the individual works interact like an ensemble, creating a sense of dialogue or cohesion.

Together and apart, seen and invisible, reluctant and present, Balema’s sculptures challenge the inner relationality and logic of the language of sculpture, creating works that transform throughout the day and change over time, refusing to yield fully to any one state.

Curated by Milan Ther