true false
the show
Some people say there is no truth. A marxist argued to the contrary. „Slap the one who says there is no truth in the face. And when he complains, say it wasn‘t you.“ Of course there is truth. But there are always different perspectives onto it. It is where you stand to observe. It is what you know. So it always is context.
This is what artists can do in their work: Offer unique perspectives on what is. It is one individual interpreting the surrounding reality: What is true and what is false, this each individual has to argue with itself each and every day. It is one of the first and most fundamental questions of philosophy. And this remains true throughout time and different cultures.
Even if there once was a president who claimed there are alternative truths it is rather fair to say, there is no alternative to truth. All else is false.
true false shows the work of four Berlin, Germany based artists: Katharina Arndt, Anina Brisolla, Jan Brokof and Brad Downey – all showing work in differnt mediums.
a groupshow of 4 artists from Berlin Germany’s artspace SCHAU FENSTER
Katharina Arndt, Anina Brisolla, Jan Brokof, Brad Downey, curated by Jan Kage
@ TSA Philadelphia 1400 N. American St. | Suite 107 | Philadelphia PA, 19122
OPENING Thursday March, 14th 2024 from 6 – 9 PM
OPEN on SATURDAYS from 12 – 6 PM until April, 13th 2024
the space
SCHAU FENSTER is located in Berlin-Kreuzberg. A 25 meters long window front – hence the name, which translates DISPLAY WINDOW. Since August 2010 SCHAU FENSTER has exhibited more than 180 group shows in a monthly rhythm. Director Jan Kage invites the curators who are mostly artists themselves. Thus more than 1.800 artists’ works were displayed in the last 13 years. Not one particular style or fashion is served. The programm is ectlectic. It’s the attitude that counts
the artists
Katharina Arndt‘s style of painting can be described as naviive realism. With a brought brushstroke that also in technique has all the elements of drawing she visualizes the urban reality around her – be it in Berlin, Germany or in Barcelona, Spain where she also lives and works. The trained sculptor and self taught painter finds her motives in young and hip urban party people, drug dealers in the park and casual scenes in the streets and is gaining it‘s genuine quality in neither glorifying nor dramatizing the depicted.
Anina Brisolla’s „fabrics“ are both drawing and sculpture. Made with a 3D pen the artist writes the word „true“ repeatedly, word by word and line by line, on one layer, which she then covers with a second layer that mantra-like reads „false“. This binary system reflects the contemporary age of so called fake news and individual truths both philosophically and politically. The shadow of these two – the third layer – is a woven net, symbolizing text and texture, posing the question, what it is that holds society together when reality-forming agreements are no longer consensus.
Jan Brokof – Eating and being eaten – the Berlin-based artist Jan Brokof deals with this topic, and with the topos of anthropophagy, man-eating, in particular. Against the background of intensive substantive research, which takes into account questions of the conquest of South America in the early modern period as well as media theory and psychological reflections on the topic, Brokof develops a world of images that, at first glance, oscillates between fascination and disgust. With scissors and glue, Brokof carries out precise massacres of the beauty ideals and clichés of current high-gloss aesthetics. Bodies become material, are reshaped and literally exploited. Images of longing mutate into absurd battlefields. Brokof’s preoccupation with anthropophagy goes far beyond the collages shown; his work also includes videos, stage sets and musical as well as theatrical performances.
Brad Downey is a scultpor, a minimalist and a conceptual artist born and raised in the US and living in Berlin for the last 20 years. His often spontaneous interventions in the public space are poetic interpretations of open space itself, playing with and altering the given surroundings of urban reality and sometimes landscapes. During the Covid-lockdowns the artist was stuck in Carolina, using this time to produce ceramics: vases that look like brick walls being the backdrop for Downey‘s writings which are addressing the issue of presence and the reassurance of individual existence, leaving personal traces symbolically in a graffiti like manner. Another body of ceramic works are figurines that alter the alphabet of patriotic American imagery.
Jan Kage lives in Berlin; Germany as a publicist, curator and musician. He studied sociology and political science and has a diploma in political theory. He promotes groupshows of contemporary art in his art space SCHAU FENSTER since 2010 and runs the gallery Kanya&Kage since 2018. Since 2003 Kage organized PARTY ARTY – a big club night to celebrate the arts, music and poetry. Kage has curated shows for institutions and galleries around Germany, for the Croatian Artist Association in Zagreb – Croatia, in Rotterdam – Netherlands, Los Angeles – USA and more. He published a couple of books on the culture of HipHop and on the art scene and writes for German magazines. Since 2009 he is hosting the weekly show Radio Arty on Berlin’s 100.6 FluxFM in which he talks with artists and curators about their work.
WWW:
Insta:
@schau_fenster_berlin
@dasartyberlin
@bigtimebrad