18. 18 March 18, 3 pm
19. Venue: 3rd floor
20. In English
21. Tickets: 5 €, reduced 3 € (Onlineticket)

Launching three Web TV stations co-devised by Christopher Roth.

Resolutions are made for an immediate future, yet with an eye on long-term change. They range from wishful fantasy to hard-nosed pragmatism. Since they are usually adopted for the wrong reasons (guilt), they are ignored at the first opportunity. But when they do take hold, resolutions are dramatic, life-changing stuff. Over the course of this year, REALTY will be showcasing a series of roughly ten such attempts. All of them reflect the fundamental query of REALTY: how to get the better of contemporary art’s complicity with gentrification. Some resolutions are about surviving this complicity—others plot a long-term path beyond it. Some are REALTY productions, others are kindred programs temporarily hosting ours. On March 17 and 18, the first two renditions, based on the work of Berlin artist Christopher Roth, will be presented at KW Institute for Contemporary Art.

realty-v is the very first REALTY artist commission featuring propagandistic vignettes, theoretical pictures, and archival materials. It willfully pursues the program’s stated agenda of getting the better of gentrification, even through the means of contemporary art. The realty-v logo is designed by artist and writer Diann Bauer.  

42 explores the spirit of television as a broadcasting tool for artistic and utopian ideas since the 1970s. Filmed in a studio at the Fahrbereitschaft in Berlin-Lichtenberg, the station revisits the efforts of artists such as Michael Asher, Dara Birnbaum, Valie Export, General Idea, Martha Rosler, Richard Serra, and others. The 42 logo is designed by Berlin-based artist Angela Bulloch.  

station+ is devoted to The Property Show, which is produced by students of Arno Brandlhuber at the ETH Zurich, department for architecture. station+ and realty-v share an investment in the collectivization of property along the lines of economist Henry George and other radical reformists.

All three channels are committed to revisiting TV as an artistic means to mass pedagogy. In 1967, Sony introduced the first Portapak system, a battery-powered recording device allowing you to shoot inexpensively from almost anywhere. See Hermine Freed in 1976: “Just when pure formalism had run its course; just when it became politically embarrassing to make objects, but ludicrous to make nothing; [just] when it became clear that TV communicates more information to more people than large walls do; just when we understood that in order to define space it is necessary to encompass time – just then the Portapak became available.” Four decades on, conditions of production may have changed considerably, but the aspirations, and the accelerative possibilities are strangely reminiscent of times gone by.

The launch event will include contributions by Zarinah Agnew, Sandra Bartoli, Arno Brandlhuber, Helene Hegemann, Siddhartha Lokanandi, Niklas Maak, Suhail Malik, Can Onaner, Patricia Reed, Christopher Roth and others. You can also expect one-pot cooking by TV chef Li Zhenhua, participating students from the ETH Zurich, and the book launch of Positions on Emancipation (ed. Florian Hertweck, Lars Müller Publishers, 2018).

REALTY is funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin.

Part of project: REALTY

The project REALTY focused on the role of contemporary art in recent histories of gentrification. These days, it seems one artist, one venue, one model after another is being unmasked as being part of the problem. But we will not be discussing art’s shortcomings yet again. Instead, REALTY asked how art’s international playing field can be put to better use. It insisted on moving beyond critique, and towards an attempt at productive models, however vague or naive. The KW leg of REALTY kicked off in October 2017, with a series of public lectures, workshops, and screenings. The project was conceived by Tirdad Zolghadr, KW’s Associate Curator, and commissioned by KW and Sommerakademie Paul Klee Bern.

Overview 

2017–2022