Pause:
AA Bronson’s
Garten der Lüste
26–29 April 18
Opening: 25 April 18, 7 pm
AA Bronson, Tent for Healing (in collaboration with Travis Meinholf), 2013, exhibition view AA Bronson, Tent of Healing, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 2013, Courtesy the artist and Esther Schipper, Berlin
Featuring AA Bronson / Collaborations with Adrian Hermanides, Mark Jan Krayenhoff van de Leur, Travis Meinolf, James Richards, and Scott Treleave / Performances with Spencer Carter, Michael Dudeck, Richard John Jones, Ebe Oke, and Chrysanne Stathacos / Additional works by Elijah Burgher, TM Davy, Sholem Krishtalka, Chrysanne Stathacos and introducing: JX Williams
AA Bronson’s Garten der Lüste—a 5-day hybrid installation featuring performances and artworks—will inaugurate KW’s second exhibition season of 2018 as part of its Pause series. Pause is envisioned as a platform to punctuate the program by presenting a singular installation for a short period of time in order to bridge relationships between the past, present and future.
AA Bronson (born 1946, Vancouver) is both artist and curator, subject and object. In this project, Bronson continues his practice of enfolding his community of artists within his own performances and artworks. The project takes Hieronymus Bosch’s famous painting The Garden of Earthly Delights (circa 1500) as its starting point. To analyze Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych is an attempt to describe the indescribable and to decipher the indecipherable—an exercise in madness. The project could be seen as a queer adaptation that executes this madness through various spirits and universes.
A pioneer of collaborative and queer visual art practice, AA Bronson is the sole surviving member of the art collective General Idea (1969–94). He has had a long history with political and social issues in art and publishing, and has collaborated with many generations of artists across many disciplines. He is a founder of FILE Magazine, Toronto; Art Metropole, Toronto; The NY Art Book Fair, New York; The Institute for Art, Religion and Social Justice, New York; and AA Bronson’s School for Young Shamans, which is nomadic. In the last decades he has knitted elements from various religions into his work, from Tibetan Buddhism and Shamanism to Ceremonial Magic, and Santería.
Tent for Healing
The Tent for Healing invites visitors to one-on-one sessions on the subject of healing. On Thursday, April 26 and Friday, April 27 from 11 am to 2 pm, the sessions will be held with artist AA Bronson, with Richard John Jones assisting. On Saturday, April 28 and Sunday, April 29 from noon to 3 pm, sessions will be held with artist Richard John Jones with Spencer Carter assisting. If you would like to join a session, please send an email to reservation@kw-berlin.de, and write a few sentences (in English) why you would like to join the session. If you are chosen for one of the sessions, you will be asked to bring a gift for the artist, something that is difficult for you to give away.
Director and curator: Krist Gruijthuijsenv
Assistant curator: Maurin Dietrich
AA Bronson’s Garten der Lüste will be on view only throughout Gallery Weekend Berlin (April 26–29, 2018). Simultaneously, Esther Schipper, Berlin presents Catch me if you can! AA Bronson + General Idea, 1968–2018 from April 26 through May 26, 2018.
Part of project: Pause series
The Pause series of KW Institute for Contemporary Art allowed for an ephemeral yet deep engagement with a single artwork in order to draw and question relationships between the past, present, and future. A Pause acted as a punctuation of KW’s regular program by presenting an artwork for a short period of time in between exhibition cycles, working with this state of in-between. Pause projects were predominantly commissioned or reworked pieces that shifted between or even merged the disciplines of performance, installation, video, and sonic work.
Overview
2017–2024
Pause: Billy Bultheel & James Richards
7–9 June 24
Pause: The Noa Eshkol Chamber Dance Group
25/27 August 23
Pause: Alexis Blake
27–29 January 23
Pause: Lydia Ourahmane
sync
1–2 October 22
Pause: Tobias Spichtig
Die Matratzen
19–23 January 22
Pause: Michele Rizzo
1–3 October 21
Pause: Archivio Conz Collection
Broken Sounds / Remote Music—Prepared Pianos
16–19 January 20
Pause: Every Ocean Hughes
24–25 August 19
Pause: Emma Hedditch
18–19 May 19
Pause: Jimmy Robert (After Ian White)
19–20 January 19
Pause: Evelyn Taocheng Wang
27–30 September 18
Pause: Ericka Beckman
18–21 January 18
Pause: Margaret Honda
18–20 August 17
Pause: Anthony McCall
27–30 April 17
Talk between Renée Green and Iman Issa
28 October 21
CANCELED: Laura Horelli & Naomi Beukes-Meyer
25 March 20
17 September 19
Reza Abdoh, Here and Now
10 April 19
15 March 19
Kasper König, Kawara + Kritik = Koda
18 January 19
Book launch and film screening
5 December 18
Book Launch
21 November 18
Claudia Skoda on art and fashion in West Berlin
Lecture, in German
28 February 18
Philipp Ekardt on Heike-Karin Föll
24 January 18
Gregor Hildebrandt on Pola Sieverding
15 December 17
Dellbrügge & de Moll on below papers
4 October 17
Lecture, in English
21 June 17
Käthe Kruse on Geniale Dilletanten
Lecture, in German
31 May 17
Annika Eriksson on Charlotte von Mahlsdorf
Lecture, in English
22 March 17
Lecture, in English
8 March 17
Peter Wächtler on Hans- Christian Lotz
Lecture, in English
21 February 17
The project at KW is generously supported by Esther Schipper, Berlin, the Embassy of Canada, Berlin, and the Canada Council for the Arts, Galerie Thomas Fuchs, and Maureen Paley, London.