Gegen-Orte
(Counter-Sites)

An artistic working process by students at the Heinz-Brandt-Schule in Berlin Weissensee in honor of the artist Annette Wehrmann, who died in 2010.

Public Program

12 March, 11 am–1 pm

3rd floor

Open workshop with pupils of Heinz-Brandt-Schule, Berlin-Weißensee

The Hamburg-based artist Annette Wehrmann inspired audiences with her awkward, childish sketches as well as her installations and (Situationist-influenced) interventions. Her works make thought processes visible in an easily accessible and aesthetic manner. Influenced by the international Situationists of the 1960s, Wehrmann turned away from the idea of a stiff, masterful work single-handedly produced by a “great artist.”¹ Through her avoidance of a “result” and her continuous aesthetic treatment of the same large social and political questions, Wehrmann created spatially and temporally equalized total works of art.

In Spring 2018, students from the Heinz-Brandt-Schule will initiate an artistic process that engages with Wehrmann’s work and commemorates the artist, who died in 2010. Wehrmann’s thoughts on political, social, artistic, and philosophical questions as well as her concept of the “counter-sites“ (Orte des Gegen) will be presented and collectively analyzed through ink sketches, texts, constructions, and “performances.“ According to Wehrmann, counter-sites are places that exist outside of economic exploitability. They are places where “no one picks up the trash.” They negate through their purposelessness.

Proceeding form this concept, students at the Heinz-Brandt-Schule will seek out counter-sites in Berlin early this year. In addition, they will develop their own counter-sites and concepts of an alternative society. The sketches and photos they develop will be presented on March 12, 2018 at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in a project workshop on the 3rd floor, within the context of the exhibition Stepping Stairs by the Berlin-based artist Judith Hopf (on view from February 9 to April 15, 2018), which includes selected works by Wehrmann.

During the Heinz-Brandt-Schule’s Easter project week, a second group of students will develop counter-sites for Berlin, inspired by their schoolmates’ sketches and concepts. These concepts and their realizations will be presented in a concluding exhibition shortly before the summer holidays.

Afterwards, the first group of students will become re-involved in the work and will further develop aesthetic concepts and questions about society’s private and public (counter)-sites through their own artistic processes.

¹ Term from the SCUM manifesto by V. Solanas. It serves as a basis for Wehrmann’s Gesamtkunstwerk S.C.U.M—A UFO for Solanas.

Artistic director:  Katharina Gerszewski, Alexandra Kersten

Gegen-Orte is a project of the cooperating partners KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Heinz-Brandt Schule. It is facilitated by the State Program “Kulturagenten für kreative Schulen Berlin” of the German Children and Youth Foundation (DKJS), and supported by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe.