New Viewings #43

Curated by Mukenge/Schellhammer

Fiction is never innocent

„The colonial enterprise was declined as fiction, just like the novel, the theater, or poetry. For a long time, the African space was the object of numerous dreams and fantasies and was considered an empty terrain on which to write a new narrative – the geography and texts about the continent are abundant in this regard.“ (Fiston Mwanza Mujila)

In their often violent desire and technological capability to become real, European regimes of fantasy and imagination have shaped the world, probably like no other force in the history of mankind, colonialism being only one extreme of this ongoing expansion and design process that reshapes whatever it finds into whatever it believes it has found or was looking for (next station Mars!). „Fiction is a technique, an instrument, a practice, a medium, an interface to work and rework collective and personal imagination as well as the world itself. Fiction is never innocent.“ (Marian Kaiser).

But fiction can also be employed to speculate about possible futures, develop alternatives to fixed identity categories, confuse gender-specific or racializing attributions and established normative categories. In that regard, the group exhibition “Fiction is never innocent” is itself not innocent. Its participants engage in reworking past, present and future images to produce individual and collective fantasies. Future is not understood here as temporality or a moment in time, but as an accumulation of possibilities that transgress easy separations and deflate ruling time regimes; fiction as a way to not only explore these possibilities, but to reappropriate, redo and reshape the conditions under which we imagine and fantasize.

The exhibition brings together four artists who employ various forms of fictionality to develop experimental, alternative future visions and images:

Mukenge/Schellhammer explores the fictional potential of contemporary depictions of otherness. Mohsen Hazrati generates the future by combining AI with an Iranian tradition of fortune telling. Alain Polo plays with current binary conceptions of Gender and proposes a tender vision of a utopian city.

Mukenge
Schellhammer

Christ Mukenge, *1988, Democratic Republic of the Congo
Lydia Schellhammer *1992, Germany

8 available works
on this platform

Pool Malebo
Pool Malebo is a well-known place in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo – a tropical river landscape that in the past has been both a real trade center and a site for the projection of European fantasies from colonial times to this day.

On the basis of this hub for the transshipment of goods and images, the Congolese/German duo Mukenge/Schellhammer explores the fictional potential of contemporary depictions of otherness in their multimedia exhibition Pool Malebo. They create opposing alienations and dream images by reordering and reinterpreting stereotypical images of the exotic. Embedding contemporary images and narratives into fantastic and speculative scenes leads to a discovery of the act of representing the other as a process of making it exotic, constructing meanings and producing realities.

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Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43

Works Mukenge/Schellhammer

Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings #43 \ New Viewings #43

Mukenge/Schellhammer

Garcons doux (2020)
Acrylic on paper
50 x 70 cm
2.380 EUR incl. VAT
More works by this artist
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings #43 \ New Viewings #43

Mukenge/Schellhammer

Tropical dream (2020)
Acrylic on canvas
120 x 230 cm
4.760 EUR incl. VAT
More works by this artist

Mukenge/Schellhammer

Crypto Christ (2022)
The digital body of Christ Mukenge - The first NFT from Kinshasa
Photogrammetry and 3D modeling
44 sec

0.666 ETH
Minted as an NFT on Foundation.
More works by this artist
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings #43 \ New Viewings #43

Mukenge/Schellhammer

Exotic brain holiday 02 (2021)
Digital 3D painting
600 x 600 px, 5 sec

0.81 ETH
Minted as an NFT on Foundation.
More works by this artist
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings #43 \ New Viewings #43

Mukenge/Schellhammer

Vitesse (speed) (2022)
Acrylics, oil pastels and glitter on canvas
220 x 223 cm
7.140 EUR incl. VAT
More works by this artist
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings #43 \ New Viewings #43

Mukenge/Schellhammer

Bling Bling et nous (2022)
Acrylic on canvas
110 x 200 cm
7.140 EUR incl. VAT
More works by this artist
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings #43 \ New Viewings #43

Mukenge/Schellhammer

Exotic brain holiday 01 (2022)
Digital 3D painting
600 x 600 px, 3 sec

0.71 ETH
Minted as an NFT on Foundation.
More works by this artist
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings #43 \ New Viewings #43

Mukenge/Schellhammer

Porcherie por chérie (2020)
Acrylic and oil pastels on canvas
120 x 210 cm
7.140 EUR incl. VAT
More works by this artist
New Viewings \ New Viewings #43

Alain Polo Nzuzi

Alain Polo Nzuzi, *1985 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, lives and works in Paris, France

5 available works
on this platform

White Series / Nature Morte – Comestible
The artistic work of Alain Polo Nzuzi integrates performance, sculpture, Voguing and elements from fashion.

Under the artist’s name Belle Garçon, he explores the intimate, emancipating himself from the usual gender and masculine canons to invent himself as more fluid. His Project “White Series / Nature Morte – Comestible” explores the internet and its bodies of fantasy that is broadcast to millions of eyes around the world. The artist perceives a kind of love affair with these screen abstractions through the way in which its virtual users put so much of their flesh into digital format, creating an aestheticization of the bodies that elicit certain virtual interactions.

Alain Polo Nzuzi takes the images of these human bodies and rearranges them in a still life setting in order to give them a softness and to veil them without hiding them. Then he cuts them with a pair of scissors, like a caress – not a violence – and he creates a new world that makes these bodies even more desirable, edible: perfect fruits and vegetables – offered to everybody.

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Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43

Works Alain Polo Nzuzi

Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings #43 \ New Viewings #43

Alain Polo Nzuzi

Take away (2015)
Archival print
60 x 80 cm
Edition of 5
3.570 EUR incl. VAT
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Alain Polo Nzuzi

Sensual Dream (2015)
Archival print
80 x 60 cm
Edition of 5
3.570 EUR incl. VAT
More works by this artist
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings #43 \ New Viewings #43

Alain Polo Nzuzi

La saison des fruits délicieux (2015)
Archival print
Edition of 5
3.570 EUR incl. VAT
More works by this artist
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings #43 \ New Viewings #43

Alain Polo Nzuzi

Untitled (2015)
60 x 80 cm
Edition of 5
3.570 EUR incl. VAT
More works by this artist
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings #43 \ New Viewings #43

Alain Polo Nzuzi

Untitled (2015)
Archival print
60 x 80 cm
Edition of 5
3.570 EUR incl. VAT
More works by this artist

Mohsen Hazrati

Mohsen Hazrati, *1987 in Shiraz, Iran
lives and works in Berlin, Germany

9 available works
on this platform

Mohsen Hazrati’s work focuses on digital culture in conjunction with themes of Shiraz culture and literature. He combines new aesthetics with Iranian traditions and their translation into the digital space.

His New Viewings show is part of his current Fãl project, in which the artist combines Iranian bibliomancy tradition with digital technology and artificial intelligence (AI).

Bibliomancy is the use of books in divination. Hazrati uses the poetry book Hafiz Divan for this purpose. The words of a randomly selected poem are converted into codes. The resulting algorithms create a data collection of text based on an internet search. From this data, users can interpret individual predictions about the future.

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Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings \ New Viewings #43

Click, drag and zoom to navigate the installation. Press F to enter full screen.

Works Mohsen Hazrati

Mohsen Hazrati

Fãl project: random divination (2022)
Digital animation, digital print
Animation: 1920 pixel x 1080 pixel, 00:01:26
Print: 14 x 25 cm

0.8 ETH
Minted as an NFT on Foundation.
More works by this artist

Mohsen Hazrati

TayAR-01 (2022)
Digital animation, digital print, Android AR application
Animation: 1080 pixel x 1080 pixel, 00:00:31
Print: 20 x 20 cm

0.8 ETH
Minted as an NFT on Foundation.
More works by this artist

Mohsen Hazrati

TayAR-02
Digital animation, digital print
Animation: 1080 pixel x 1080 pixel, 00:00:31
Print: 20 x 20 cm

0.8 ETH
Minted as an NFT on Foundation.
More works by this artist

Mohsen Hazrati

TayAR-03 (2022)
Digital animation, digital print
Animation: 1080 pixel x 1080 pixel, 00:00:31
Print: 20 x 20 cm

0.8 ETH
Minted as an NFT on Foundation.
More works by this artist
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings #43 \ New Viewings #43

Mohsen Hazrati

Fãl project: non-AI (2022)
Resin 3D Print, iridescent paper, pigment
26 x 20 cm
5.950 EUR incl. VAT
More works by this artist

Mohsen Hazrati

TayAR-04 (2022)
Digital animation, digital print
Animation: 1080 pixel x 1080 pixel, 00:00:31
Print: 20 x 20 cm

0.8 ETH
Minted as an NFT on Foundation.
More works by this artist
Galerie Barbara Thumm \ New Viewings #43 \ New Viewings #43

Mohsen Hazrati

QQQ - Redundancy Repetitions (2021)
Metal Sheet, Metal Wheels, Print on Fabric [30 cm x 210 cm], Android AR application
17.850 EUR incl. VAT
More works by this artist

Mohsen Hazrati

Fãl project: non-AI (2022)
Digital animation, digital print, Android AR application
Animation: 1920 pixel x 1080 pixel, 00:01:26
Print: 14 x 25 cm

0.8 ETH
Minted as an NFT on Foundation.
More works by this artist

Mohsen Hazrati

Fãl project: non-AI (2022)
Digital animation, digital print
Animation: 1920 pixel x 1080 pixel, 00:01:26
Print: 14 x 25 cm

0.8 ETH
Minted as an NFT on Foundation.
More works by this artist