MUMBAI.- The Goethe Institut Mumbai/Max Mueller Bhavan presents FABRIK: On the Circulation of Data, Goods and People, the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2015. The exhibition, supported by ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), Germany, will be held across Gallery MMB (Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Kalaghoda) and Chemould Prescott Road.

The Venice Biennale is the oldest art show of its kind, and provides permanent pavilions to exhibiting countries. The pavilions house curated exhibitions from member countries, that speak to the latest trends and concerns in contemporary art.

Fabrik is curated by Florian Ebner, with Lars Willumeit and features four large works by artists Olaf Nicolai, Hito Steyerl, Tobias Zielony and Jasmina Metwali/Philip Rizk. In the words of the curator, “The German Pavilion has often acted as an artistic echo chamber for German history and identity. FABRIK, which means Factory in German, aims to create a resonant space in which the productive sound of a globalized world can be heard. Starting from their varied reflections on the notions of ‘work’, ‘migration’, and ‘revolt’, the four artistic positions transform the exhibition space into a factory, into a vanished, virtual factory of the imagination, into a factory for political narratives and for analysing our visual culture.”

The exhibition will be divided between Gallery MMB and Chemould Prescott Road (details below).The pavilion is a parable for the metamorphosis of visual media – from pictures as classical recording to the generation, processing and projection of images. In being a statement about the changing use of images, which blurs the boundaries between document, testimony, and fiction, the exhibition also provokes the dispensing and understanding of current visual language and ways of story-telling, that look to creating an appreciation of the changes taking place in the world at large.

This exhibition also marks the rare occasion of a Venice Biennale pavilion exhibition traveling to other countries, especially India. It is a great opportunity for artists and thinkers alike to consider how the new visual means of communication affects our view of the world, as well as an insight into the use of technologies in art.

Works exhibited are as follows:

Chemould Prescott Road: Hito Steyerl, Factory of the Sun
This video installation shows a world in turmoil and a world of images on the move. It involves the translation of real political figures into virtual figures and an innovative experience of making and engaging with images, somewhere between a documentary approach and full-on virtuality. This interactive installation will take up the entire gallery.

Gallery MMB: Olaf Nicolai: GIRO and Lucarne (install? Film? Can’t tell)
In Olaf Nicolai’s works, the protagonists perform mysterious activities, enacting a shadow economy under a glistening sun. The choreography of his figures shifts focus between functional actions (or the actual production of an object) and the aesthetic dimension of what is done.

Tobias Zielony: The Citizen (photographs?)
Tobias Zielony’s series The Citizen Tobias Zielony’s series The Citizen is concerned with one of today’s most important political questions—the presence of ‘the other’, embodied by African refugees. Although the migration movements of our time are often reduced to the tragedies that occur at the external frontiers of the ‘fortress Europe’, Zielony’s view is directed towards the self portrayal of these people, their personal stories, their entitlement to be taken seriously as political subjects in Germany.

Jasmina Metwaly/Philip Rizk: Out on the Street and Draw it Like This
Metwaly and Rizk are Cairo-based German artists and filmmakers. Through film, sound and sculpture, Metwaly and Rizk take a stance take against neoliberal processes in Egypt. The work is not documentary. Instead, the duo pursues a form of theatre, an enactment, based on the experiences of the collective and the power of the imagination.