While Berlin is cautiously looking forward to spring and freedom in these uncertain times, Collegium Hungaricum Berlin has teamed up with MOMENTUM to offer a unique COVID-compatible art experience adjacent to Berlin’s Museum Island. We have gathered a selection of cutting-edge media and video art from Hungary to be shown in dialogue with works from the MOMENTUM Collection, reflecting on our shared experience of a world affected by a global pandemic. Starting on April 16th, the open-air screening program Lockdown Schmockdown, initiated by MOMENTUM IsideOut together with CHB Fassadenkino, will be running every Friday to Sunday from sundown until 11pm, until the end of May.

– Zsuzska Petró

Gülsün Karamustafa, Personal Time Quartet (2000)

Gulsun Karamustafa’s 4-channel video installation and soundscape, Personal Time Quartet, was intended as a portrait of the artist’s childhood. Yet now, seen through the prism of Corona-times, this portrait of innocent domesticity instead paints a picture of how many of us have felt during the various pandemic lockdowns, stuck indoors and perpetually repeating the same domestic tasks.

BIO

Gülsün Karamustafa was born in 1946 in Ankara, Turkey. She lives and works in Istanbul and Berlin, where she is recognized as one of the most important and pioneering Turkish contemporary artists. She received her MFA from the Istanbul Academy of Fine Art in 1969. Using personal and historical narratives, Karamustafa explores socio-political issues in modern Turkey, addressing themes including sexuality-gender, exile-ethnicity, and displacement-migration. Her work reflects on the traumatic effects of nation building, as it responds to the processes of modernization, political turbulence, and civil rights in a period that includes the military coups of 1960, 1971, and 1980.

Karamustafa is one of the laureates of the 2014 Prince Claus Award, and her recent solo exhibitions include: “Chronographia” at Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2016-2017); “Swaddling the Baby”, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna (2016) / Villa Romana, Florence (2015); “Mystic Transport” (a duo exhibition with Koen Thys), Centrale for Contemporary Art, and Argos Centre for Art and Media, Brussels (2015-2016); “An Ordinary Love”, Rampa, Istanbul (2014); “A Promised Exhibition”, SALT Ulus, Ankara (2014), SALT Beyoglu, SALT Galata, Istanbul (2013); amongst many others. Karamustafa took part in numerous international biennales, including: 31st Sao Paulo Biennial (2014); 3rd & 10th Gwangju Biennials (2000, 2014); 4th Thessaloniki Biennale (2013); 1st Kiev Biennale (2012); Singapore Biennial (2011), 3rd Guangzou Triennial (2008); 11th Cairo Biennial (2008); 2nd Contour Video Art Biennale, Mechelen (2005); 1st Seville Biennial (2004); 8th Havana Biennial (2003); 3rd Cetinje Biennial (2003); 2nd, 3rd & 4th Istanbul Biennials (1987, 1992, 1995).

Qiu Anxiong, Cake (2014)

In a timeless and exquisitely crafted contemplation on the past, the present, and the relationship between the two, Qiu Anxiong’s Cake combines painting, drawing and clay with a discordant soundtrack of mechanical noises. With heart-rate monitors, sirens, and police radio scanners running throughout the soundtrack, and images of wrestlers rendered in a variety of media, this work can be read as particularly emblematic of the struggles of our viral times.

BIO

Qiu Anxiong (b. 1972, Chengdu) is one of China’s most prominent contemporary artists. He studied at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, and in 2003 he graduated from the University of Kassel College of Art in Germany after six years of studying both contemporary international art and traditional Chinese culture. After having worked predominantly in oil painting during his studies in Kassel and having later turned to landscape painting in the tradition of the old Chinese masters, Qiu’s return to Shanghai in 2004 marked a shift in interest towards animations and video art. In his animated films, Qiu co-mingles the classical and the contemporary, using the traditional Chinese ink-and-wash style to transpose contemporary social and environmental issues onto traditional Chinese landscapes, taking the undifferentiated mass of history as his raw material. Qiu’s works are known for their profound and bleak contemplation on the relationship between man and nature, and criticism of mass urbanization and environmental degradation.

Qiu Anxiong’s work is held in numerous museum collections, including: Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, USA; Spencer Museum of Art, Kansas, USA; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford University, UK; Kunst Haus Zurich, Switzerland; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan; Art Museum of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway. Qiu Anxiong rose to international prominence in the 2006 Shanghai Biennial, and, the same year, received the CCAA Contemporary Art Award from the Shanghai Zhengdai Museum of Modern Art (2006). Subsequently, he participated in numerous international biennales and festivals, including: 3rd Nanjing International Art Festival, China (2016); 1st Animation Film Festival Xi An, China (2012); 4th Ink Painting Art Biennale Tai Pei, Taiwan (2012); 1st Animation Biennale, OCAT Art Center, Shen Zhen, China (2012); Chengdu Biennale, China (2011/2001); 54th Venice Biennale, Italy, Collateral Program (2011); 29th Sao Paulo Biennale, Brazil (2010); Busan Biennale, Korea (2010); Nanjing Bienale, China (2010); Animamix Biennial, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2009); 6th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT6), Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, Australia (2009-2010); 11th Cairo Biennale, Egypt (2008); 2nd Athens Biennial, Greece (2009); 5th Media Biennale, Seoul, Korea (2008); Mediations Biennale, Poznań, Poland (2008); 3rd Guangzhou Triennial, China (2008); 16th Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2008); 3rd Lianzhou International Photo Festival, China (2007);

David Szauder, Six Easy Pieces About Nothing (2020-2021)

1 – Personal Rain Snow (2021). 2 – Galactic Drama (2020). 3 – The Philosopher Garden (2020). 4 – Kinetic Amusement (2020). 5 – Joyride /em>(2021). 6 – Cosmic Accident (2020)

“Last June, after almost four months of lockdown, I began to work with animated compositions that depicted imaginary figures in a timeless space, with no other human being in sight. The figures themselves are motionless, while the space they peacefully inhabit shows some kind of cosmic motion. The objects of this environment, as well as the space itself are animated by a mysterious force. The ensuing rhythmic movement renders their experience eternal. The figures are peaceful, pensive, and subdued, yet isolated and perhaps even lonely. They appear as though they were all ‘sitting on the edge of the void…’ – But perhaps, it’s not about the void, and one day, they might swing into action. We’ll see. Will we?” (Dávid Szauder)

BIO

Media artist David Szauder (b. 1976 in Hungary) studied Art History at the Eötvös Loránd University and Intermedia at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest, and completed a Masters Fellowship at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture at the Aalto University in Helsinki. From 2009 to 2014 he worked as the curator at the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Berlin (CHB). David Szauder is a visiting lecturer at the Film Academy, Potsdam, in addition to leading workshops on interactive media in Berlin and Budapest since 2010. Since 2019, he is the New Media Advisor for the Artistic Director of the VEB 2023 European Capital of Culture. Szauder has participated in a variety of international projects as artist and curator. In cooperation with MOMENTUM, previous projects include: “Art Nomads: Made in the Emirates” at Studio 1, Kunstquartier Bethanien (Berlin, 2016);“Ganz Grosses Kino” KIK Eight at Kino International (Berlin, 2016); MOMENTUM InsideOut: Amir Fattal, “Atara” (Berlin Gallery Weekend, 2015); MOMENTUM InsideOut: “A Time for Dreams” & “Budapest Sketch”(Berlin Art Week, 2014); “PANDAMONIUM Preview // INTERPIXEL: Media Art from Shanghai and Budapest” (Berlin Gallery Weekend, 2014);

Marina Belikova, The Astronaut’s Journal (2016), Animation, 5 min 19 sec

In The Astronaut’s Journal, painted in the frame-by-frame oil on glass technique, the viewer is taken on a journey through memories, fears, hopes and other distant corners, found in one’s inner space. The immersive trip between planets is based on the author’s life story and was inspired by Stanislav Lemm’s Solaris: “Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.”

BIO

Marina Belikova is a Berlin based media artist, working with photography, graphic design and 2D animation. She has a background in web and media design. In 2012-2013 she did an M.A. in Communication Design in Kingston University London and in 2016 she graduated from Bauhaus University Weimar with an M.A. in Media Art and Design, making “The astronaut’s journal” as her master thesis. Belikova tells narratives through the old school oil on glass animation technique, where each frame is painted individually and then captured with a camera as stop motion animation. She also works with photography and mixed media, exploring the topics of human memories and interaction between people and urban spaces. Her animation have been screened at multiple film festivals in more than 10 countries and her photo series have received the Bauhaus Essentials Prize and have been shown various exhibitions.

Kate McMillan, Paradise Falls I (2011) + Paradise Falls II (2012)

A topic made especially poignant in today’s pandemic reality, Kate McMillan’s Paradise Falls is a tribute to the disappeared, to the forgotten sites of distant traumas, to the frailty of personal and historic memory. Drawing parallels between physical and psychological landscapes, McMillan has created moving paintings where ghost-like people flicker in and out of existence, as symbols of fractured histories that disappear from focus, yet continue in our collective psyche as haunting traumas. Seen now, from the epicenter of our pandemic crisis, this begs the question of how will we look back upon, and remember, the time of Corona?

BIO

Kate McMillan (b.1974, Hampshire, UK), lived in Perth, Australia from 1982-2012, relocating to London in 2013. McMillan’s work incorporates a range of media including sculpture, film, sound, installation, textiles and performance. She is interested in the linking narratives of forgetting and place, often focusing on the residue of the past. McMillan’s artworks thus act as haunting memory-triggers for histories and ideas that are overlooked. McMillan has resided on the Board of the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) based in Sydney. She earned her Phd at Curtin University, Perth. In addition to her practice as an artist, she is currently a Lecturer in Contemporary Art in the Department for Culture, Media and Creative Industries, King’s College, London.

McMillan’s work has been featured in various museums and biennales, including: the 17th Biennale of Sydney; the Trafo Centre for Contemporary Art, Poland; Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai; Art Gallery of Western Australia; Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne; Perth Institute for Contemporary Art; John Curtin Gallery, Perth; Govett Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand, and the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney. Previous solo exhibitions include ‘The Past is Singing in our Teeth’ presented at MOMENTUM in 2017, which, in 2018, toured to the Civic Room in Glasgow and Arusha Gallery for the Edinburgh Arts Festival. Other solo exhibitions include ‘Instructions for Another Future’ 2018 Moore Contemporary, Australia; ‘Songs for Dancing, Songs for Dying’, 2016, Castor Projects, London; ‘The Potter’s Field’, 2014, ACME Project Space, London; ‘Anxious Objects’, Moana Project Space, Australia; ‘The Moment of Disappearance’, 2014, Performance Space, Sydney; ‘In the shadow of the past, this world knots tight’, 2013 Venn Gallery; Paradise Falls, 2012, Venn Gallery; ‘Lost’ at the John Curtin Gallery in 2008, ‘Broken Ground’ in 2006 at Margaret Moore Contemporary Art and ‘Disaster Narratives’ at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts for the 2004 Perth International Arts Festival.

Theo Eshetu, Festival of Sacrifice (2012)

Faith and spirituality is the subject of Theo Eshetu’s Festival of Sacrifice, depicting an ancient cultural tradition, the celebration of Eid-ul-Adha, the Islamic Festival of Sacrifice. Turning the ritual itself into a trance, the video recreates, through its multiplication of images, the kaleidoscopic patterns that highlight the transcendental aspect of the event. In creating aesthetic beauty from images of ritual slaughter, Eshetu shows us how spirituality can locate beauty, hope and a deeper meaning even in times of death and disease.

BIO

Theo Eshetu was born in London 1958, and grew up in Addis Ababa, Dakar, Belgrade and Rome. He now lives and works in Berlin. A pioneer of video art since 1982, Theo Eshetu draws from anthropology, art history, scientific research, and religion—Catholic, African, Muslim, Buddhist—to explore clashes and harmonies of human subjectivity between world cultures in the global context. Though essentially conceptual, and often exploring video’s formal components of time and light, Eshetu’s work is often focused on cultural displacement, and is always grounded in compelling aesthetic components, often achieved through fractal repetition, such as kaleidoscopic mirroring, multi-screen projections, or mosaic-like patterning of images.

Among numerous international awards, Eshetu was Artist in Residence at Tarabya Cultural Academy, Turkey where he completed aspects of production for Altas Fractured (2017) which was featured in Documenta 14, Athens and Kassel in 2017. In 2012 he was Artist in Residence at the DAAD program in Berlin, where he exhibited The Return of the Axum Obelisk at DAADgalerie in 2014. In 2011 he participated the Venice Biennale and the Sharjah Biennale. His work has appeared at: The New Museum, NY; the New York African Film Festival; DIA Foundation’s Electronic Arts Intermix, NY; Snap Judgments at ICP (International Centre for Photography), NY; BAM Cinemateque, NY; Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY; Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland USA; Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC; the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Africa Remix at The Hayward Gallery, London; the Venice Film Festival; Roma Film Festival; Museum of Modern Art in Rome; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Nice, France; the UNESCO headquarters in Paris; the Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; among many other museums, biennales, and film festivals.

David Krippendorff, Nothing Escapes My Eyes (2015)

David Krippendorff’s Nothing Escapes My Eyes is a time-warping tribute to a changing world where, to a moving soundtrack from the eponymous opera, a would-be Aida sheds tears for a place and time which no longer exist. COVID-19 changed our world forever, leaving gaping holes in the hearts of those who lost loved ones, impoverishing those prevented from working. Yet it also generated a remarkable outpouring of creativity, good will, and good humor as people around the world try to cope, individually and communally, with our changing world in the time of Corona.

BIO

David Krippendorff, born in Berlin in 1967, is a US/German interdisciplinary artist and experimental filmmaker. Currently based in Berlin, he grew up in Rome, Italy, and studied art at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin, Germany, where he graduated with a masters degree in 1997. His works, films and videos have been shown internationally, including: the New Museum (New York), ICA (London), Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg), Museum on the Seam (Jerusalem). He has participated in four Biennials (Prague, Poznan, Tel Aviv, and Belgrade), as well as in many international art and film festivals worldwide.

Map Office, Viral Operation (2003)

In Viral Operation the Hong Kong artist duo Map Office fly to Berlin from a Hong Kong ravaged by the SARS epidemic, this century’s first major viral outbreak in 2003, for a road trip crossing all possible European land borders on their way to the Venice Biennale. Wearing masks, they are treated as suspect Others, potential contaminants. Now, 18 years later, when we are all wearing masks and travel restrictions abound, we look back at Viral Operation as a social experiment, prefiguring what was to come.

BIO

MAP OFFICE is a multidisciplinary platform devised by Laurent Gutierrez (b. Casablanca, 1966) and Valérie Portefaix (b. Saint-Etienne, 1969). This duo of artists/architects has been based in Hong Kong since 1996, working on physical and imaginary territories using varied means of expression that includes drawing, photographs, video, installations, performance and literary and theoretical texts. Their entire project forms a critique of spatio-temporal anomalies and documents how human beings subvert and appropriate space. Their projects have been included in major international art and architecture events, including: the 7th, 11th and 12th Venice Architecture Biennale (2000, 2008, 2010), the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008), the 10th Istanbul Biennale (2007), the 15th Sydney Biennale (2006), and the 52nd Venice Art Biennale (2007).

Laurent Gutierrez is an Associate Professor at the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where he leads the Environment and Interior Design discipline and the Master of Strategic Design as well as the Master in Urban Environments Design. He is also the co-director of SD SPACE LAB. Gutierrez is currently finishing a PhD on the “Processes of Modernization and Urbanization in China focusing on the Pearl River Delta region.”

Valérie Portefaix is the principal of MAP OFFICE. She received her Master of Architecture degree from the School of Architecture Paris-Belleville and a PhD in Urbanism from the Pierre Mendes University France. She is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at the School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

David Szauder, Light Space Materia(2020)

Szauder’s film Light Space Materia commingles found footage related to the seminal ideas of the Bauhaus with digital 3D animations and a soundtrack made by the artist to foreground the haptic qualities of the materiality of image and sound. Szauder focuses on the fundamental question of how modern technology could change the formal expression of movement. Just as the Bauhaus always held an important pioneering position in the relationship of art to technology, this synergy becomes increasingly important as new technologies of making and viewing images continue to evolve in our over-mediated pandemic age where we engage with the world predominantly through our screens.

BIO

Media artist David Szauder (b. 1976 in Hungary) studied Art History at the Eötvös Loránd University and Intermedia at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest, and completed a Masters Fellowship at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture at the Aalto University in Helsinki. From 2009 to 2014 he worked as the curator at the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Berlin (CHB). David Szauder is a visiting lecturer at the Film Academy, Potsdam, in addition to leading workshops on interactive media in Berlin and Budapest since 2010. Since 2019, he is the New Media Advisor for the Artistic Director of the VEB 2023 European Capital of Culture. David Szauder has participated in a variety of international projects as artist and curator. In cooperation with MOMENTUM, previous projects include: “Art Nomads: Made in the Emirates” at Studio 1, Kunstquartier Bethanien (Berlin, 2016);“Ganz Grosses Kino” KIK Eight at Kino International (Berlin, 2016); MOMENTUM InsideOut: Amir Fattal, “Atara” (Berlin Gallery Weekend, 2015); MOMENTUM InsideOut: “A Time for Dreams” & “Budapest Sketch”(Berlin Art Week, 2014); “PANDAMONIUM Preview // INTERPIXEL: Media Art from Shanghai and Budapest” (Berlin Gallery Weekend, 2014);