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KIRSTEN PALZ
(b. 1971 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany.)
Kirsten Palz is a visual artist, with a degree in Computer Science from the IT-University in Copenhagen, and a degree of Fine Arts in Painting from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. In the past decade Kirsten Palz has shown her work in a variety of exhibitions, performances and readings in Berlin and abroad, and worked collectively with international artists. Her work has been structured around a text archive, which now consists of over 500 texts or instructions for performative actions and translations (as e.g. drawings, sculptures, performances, theater scripts and dance choreographies). The archive, which is titled ‘Sculpture as Writing’ departs from an expanded concept of sculpture that can materialize across techniques and disciplines. In addition to her own artistic practice, she supports and curates works of other artists. Palz runs a project space ‘le Foyer du Château’ at Karl-Liebknecht Straße, Berlin, and is involved with the organisation Art and Feminism to organise for Berlin the international workshop EDIT-A-THON (wikipedia) taking place on international women day.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
‘Sculpture as Writing’ is an archive – elementary entities; the manual, the score, the flyer, the playwright, the architectural plan, the choreography or the data-set. They exist before the performance, before the realisation, before the show. It is thus a speculative open process for new actors; be it a visitor, a curator, a collective, an actor, a director or a performer.
‘Sculpture as Writing’ is independent towards any previous staging and find power in the future. Each new interpretation, performance or act of a singular work from the archive becomes unique within the new engagement. I welcome this uncertainty.
The fragmented and independent representation suits my practice that is performative and changes with every iteration. Everyone is invited to engage.
– Kirsten Palz
Solo Exhibitions and Performances include, in 2022: ‘Chronicles of Extinction’, Changing Room, Berlin; ‘Nie wieder Krieg’ (performance) Neue Nationalgalerie, Mahnmal für Ukraine, Berlin. 2020: Re-imagining America, Spor Küblü, Berlin; ‘Below the Sun’, Changing Room, Berlin. 2019: Urhütte: Variations on an Archetype, Performative reading with Norbert Palz, SCHARAUN, Siemensstadt, Exhibition Heidegger’s Hut; Kirsten Palz. E.S. KOMMT UND GEHT Disko – Buchhandlung, Berlin; SET AND ALGORITHM Performance, Changing-room, Berlin. 2018: New editions with ACTA, Friends with Books, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin. 2017: Sculpture as Writing // Konversationskunst in Botschaft, Berlin, Kirsten Palz with Antje Eske & Kurd Alsleben. 2016: Data Mining Kiosk, Exhibition in VII Acts, ACTA with Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez, National Museum, Berlin. 2015: Breakfast at Paul’s, Schwartzsche Villa, Berlin; ‘Sculpture in four parts’ ACTA with Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez, Grimmuseum, Berlin; Performance with Efrat Stempler, Month of Performance Art, MOMENTUM, Berlin; Choreography for One, Performance with 26 readings for dancers. Eden, Berlin; Dance 001 (Performance), Tete, Berlin. 2014: Sculpture for closed space, Performance, Studiolo, Kunst-Werke, Berlin; 3D Soirée. Lesung I +II/ Manuale von Kirsten Palz mit Erik Steinbrecher, Hochschule der Künste, Zurich. 2013: Ernst in der Sache, Performance with Paul Polaris, Kunsthaus Zürich; Manuals for R, Performance. MOMENTUM, Berlin. 2012: Sculpture for Friends, Ozean, Berlin; Sculpture as Writing, Grey Sheep, Institut für Raumexperimente, Studio Olafur Eliasson, Berlin. 2011: Kirsten Palz and Jeroen Jacobs, Rakete.co, Berlin. 2010: Kirsten Palz _ Manuals. Spor Klübü, Berlin.
Group Exhibitions include, in 2022: Blind Vision, Wilhelminenhofstr, Berlin; MICROLOGIES, Berlin- Los Angeles Connect, Irenic Projects, Pasadena, LA, USA. 2021: Temporäre Projekte im Stadtraum. Organiseret af lfdc; States of Emergency, MOMENTUM, Berlin; Points of Resistance, Zionskirche, Berlin. 2020: ELYSIUM, Positions, Berlin. 2019: PEACE, Spor Klübü, Berlin. 2018: ‘ÄRMEL AUFKREMPELN ZUPACKEN AUFBAUEN!’, Spor Klübü, Berlin. 2016: ‘Inglan is A Bitch’, Spor Klübü, Berlin; Gutai, Performance, Tokyo WonderSite, Japan; Psycotropic Sculpture for closed space, Performance, Tete, Berlin. 2015 Xerox, Bar Babette, Berlin; Tekst efter Text, Den Frie, Copenhagen; Works on Paper, Month of Performance Art, MOMENTUM, Berlin. 2014: Festival of Future Nows, Performance, Neue Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; IWF Mördertreff, Spor Klübü, Berlin; Die Äesthetic des Wiederstands, IG Bildende Kunst, Wien. 2013: Thresholds: crossing boarders between video, performance and the visual arts, MOMENTUM Archive of Performance, Collegium Hungaricum, Berlin; Ernst in der Sache with Paul Polaris. ‘Invisible Zurich’, Stadtarchiv, Südbühne, Gessnerallee, Zürich; ‘REMIX – 10 years in the mix’, Spor Klübü, Berlin; ‘The Oracle’, with ff, The Wand, Berlin; Works On Paper, Month of Performance Art, MOMENTUM, Berlin; ff /Erogenous Zone, Temporary Autonomous Zone /2/, Galerie in Körnerpark, Berlin. 2012: Unfair poetry and other art things, Institut für Raumexperimente, Berlin; ‘Cocaine-.’ Spor Klübü, Berlin; Presence /Absence, Hotel Paravent, Berlin; LANDING, Project-room Teksas, Denmark. 2011: Let the Rhythm Hit ‘Em, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; SOLOS II, Ozean, Atelierhof Kreuzberg, Berlin; MOLTO, Artissima Lido, Turin; Künstlerische Produktion, Espace Surplus, Berlin; 4th Gemini Show, WEST GERMANY, Berlin; Wilhelm Reich | Ayn Rand, Gallery Essays and Observations, Berlin; An Exchange with Sol LeWitt, The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MOCA). 2010: Stranded in the Future, Spor Klübü, Berlin.
MANUALS FOR R (2012/2013)
ink on paper
The Manual as Script, Drawing and Experiment. I define the Manual as an open directive and conceptual sketch for an factual or potential intervention in space. The manuals are named after the industrial manual and prescribe the execution, matter and functionality of specific situations and objects.
The manuals describe these developments, processes and objects trough texts and diagrams. Manuals for Rachel comprises a selection of manuals written in 2013. These new manuals are a continuation of the series ‘Writings as Sculpture’ started in 2012.
Songbooks (2016-2023) / ‘Sculpture as Writing’
Ink on paper. Written in verse, each of the books engage with a current theme. The series consists to date of the books:
2023 Songbook/ Nunca más la guerra, un lamento. Edition.
2022 Songbook/ Nie wieder Krieg. Edition.
2020 Songbook/ Covid-19. Edition.
2019 Songbook/ Below the Sun. Edition.
2019 Songbook/ Do we feel lonely. Edition.
2018 Songbook/ Human Biotope and Bioengineering. Edition.
2016 Songbook/ Book of Verse. Edition.
Below the Sun (2020) was written against the backdrop of rising global temperatures. The score’s theme centers on the sun as the most powerful energy resource in our solar-system and its relationship to ancient mythology and modern science. On Christmas Day 1968, the Apollo 17 mission delivered a complete photographic image of the Earth, which went down in history as the “Blue Marble”. The visual depiction showed a fragile, glassy-looking object and its implication was responsible for a growing ecological awareness in the decades that followed. However, more than 50 years later, human impact on the planet through consumerism and environmental destruction has brought the world’s ecology onto the verge of destruction. Below the Sun was written against the backdrop of rising global temperature. It’s a song about the sun as the most powerful energy resource in our solar-system. Further more, the sun with its voluminous burning mass, was central for ancient mythology and modern science alike.
– Kirsten Palz
The Songbooks are part of Kirsten Palz’s ongoing conceptual practice of “Sculpture as Writing”, based upon an expanded concept of sculpture that can materialize across techniques and disciplines. The Songbook / Nunca más la guerra, un lamento. (2023) is an adaption of the Songbook Nie wieder Krieg (2022). The lament was performed for the first time at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin as a protest against the war in Ukraine. This tragic war remains ongoing at the time of this exhibition, as are so many other senseless wars being fought around the world. Kirstn Palz’s lament – a denial of violence, a plea against history repeating itself – poses a stark reminder of all the distant wars raging elsewhere. The Songbook / Nunca más la guerra, un lamento. was made especially for MOMENTUM’s exhibition ART from ELSEWHERE: Mexico City.
Chronicles of Extinction (2021)
ink on paper, 24 books from an ongoing series, 30.5 × 68 cm
Chronicles of Extinction marks the start of a new series of work for Kirsten Palz, while remaining true to her conceptual practice of “Sculpture as Writing”, encompassing her manuals, songbooks, and other text-based works. The 24 books from the ongoing series Chronicles of Extinction, are a cry against the ecological devastation mankind is wreaking upon our planet; they are a song of mourning for the disappeared and still disappearing species that once inhabited this earth with us; a needed reminder; a sad farewell.
Chronicles of Extinction consists of 24 individual editions that form the beginning of an ongoing archive. Each of the twelve editions lists twelve extinct species. The applied scientific classification system compiles information on kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species for each extinct member:
VOID 01 ACTINOPTERYGII ray-finned fishes
VOID 02 AMPHIBIA shrub frogs
VOID 03 AVES birds
VOID 04 AVES birds
VOID 05 BIVALVIA molluscs
VOID 06 GASTROPODA snails and land slugs
VOID 07 INSECTA owlet moths
VOID 08 LILIOPSIDA lilies
VOID 09 MAGNOLIOPSIDA flowering plants
VOID 10 MAGNOLIOPSIDA flowering plants
VOID 11 MAMMALIA rodents
VOID 12 REPTILIA reptiles
Each extinction creates a void.
Each extinction is irreversible.
Watch here the Spotlight interview with Kirsten Palz