benandsebastian will be participating in an exhibition curated by Cassandra Edlefsen Lasch and Annabelle von Girsewald opening on the 18th of September 2013. The exhibition is inspired by Hreinn Friðfinnsson’s House Project (1974) & Georges Perec’s Espèces d’espaces (1974).

Homecomings press release:

I would like there to exist places that are stable, unmoving, intangible, untouched and almost untouchable,
unchanging, deep-rooted; places that might be points of reference, of departure, of origin […]

Such places don‘t exist, and it‘s because they don‘t exist that space becomes a question, ceases to be self-evident, ceases to be incorporated, ceases to be appropriated. Space is a doubt: I have constantly to mark it, to designate it. It‘s never mine, never given to me, I have to conquer it. […]

My spaces are fragile: time is going to wear them away, to destroy them. Nothing will any longer resemble what was, my memories will betray me, oblivion will infiltrate my memory. […]

To write: to try meticulously to retain something, to cause something to survive; to wrest a few precise scraps from the void as it grows, to leave somewhere a furrow, a trace, a mark or a few signs.

Georges Perec, Species of Space (1974)

What can it mean to return home? “homecomings“ brings together international artists living in Berlin to investigate the various facets of coming home. No one definitive denotation of the term exists. In its plurality, “homecomings“ can be understood as a multi-layered experience of locality, coated in time. Every return loosens the stability of the singular—through repetition a home is traced in its absence.

The concept and presented works are inspired both by Georges Perec‘s Espèces d‘espaces (Species of Space, 1974)—exemplary of Perec’s poetic explorations of space and language—and the Icelandic artist, Hreinn Friðfinnsson‘s House Project (1974). Based on a myth, Friðfinnsson built an inside-out house in a lava field south of Hafnarfjörður, Iceland. With the wallpaper on the outside and the façade on the inside, he conceptually encapsulated the universe within his structure. Over the years Friðfinnsson returned to this original concept in making a series of structures that successively dematerialize the house.

The fragile flux of presence and absence found in outlining the home—in relation to the frame, the structure, the self—is a reflection of surfaces both interior and exterior. Any such designation registers a perspective constantly shifting in a complex succession of things seen or imagined. The artworks, whether existing or newly produced for “homecomings“, translate both architectural and linguistic terms and methodologies into spatial and conceptual loci of agency. Through shifts of scale, serial combination, and systematic modeling of the world around them, the assembled artists address an intimate reflection of self-perception, proposing a rereading of lived space and history-less time. Inhabiting a present and simultaneous past and future, the works arrive home in illusory revolution.

“homecomings“ will take place in a recently inaugurated art space—a former horse and carriage stable under historic preservation. Rather than a definitive end, the show will come to a close through the sequential deinstallation of the works alongside events aimed at opening up the discussion surrounding what it can mean to leave and return to a place as both emotional and conceptual journey.

Annabelle von Girsewald is a Berlin exhibition maker from the US. During her years in London she assisted, among others, Hans Ulrich Obrist at the Serpentine Gallery. It was there that she first became acquainted with the work of Hreinn Friðfinnsson. In 2005, in her Frankfurt apartment, she initiated an ongoing series of exhibitions, bringing together artists whose practices grapple with themes such as identity and the meaning of home.

Also from the US, Cassandra Edlefsen Lasch has worked in contemporary art since 2007 in Berlin. With the gallery neugerriemschneider, she managed projects and exhibitions with artists such as Jorge Pardo. “homecomings” furthers her curatorial and editorial collaborations with artists working around
text, architecture, design, and visual and performing arts—following traces of context in its myriad translations.

18 September, 4 – 9pm
19 September – 27 October, Friday–Sunday 1 – 7pm or by appointment
closing events 21 – 27 October, see website for details
For further information please contact info@homecomings.de