Benjamin Bergmann
13 Sep - 25 Oct 2014
BENJAMIN BERGMANN
Top left, bottom right
13 September – 25 October 2014
Our daily striving is marked by our need for direction and our quest for meaning. The question as to why, how and where things happen constantly drives humans to come together in communities and other alliances as a means of enhancing the power of the people.
On the occasion of this year’s Rundgang at the Leipzig Baumwollspinnerei, the exhibition “links oben unten rechts” (Top left, bottom right) by Benjamin Bergmann (born in 1968 in Würzburg) takes the visitor on an emotional roller-coaster ride through a myriad of feelings, hopes and desires. The works in the exhibition revolve around the notion of the promise of salvation through religion, as well as the social event and community spectacle. By juxtaposing emotional and physical experience, Bergmann’s works confront us with critical questions whilst also challenging the promises of salvation and prospective recovery on a journey determined by constantly recurring disorientation.
The object entitled “links oben unten rechts”, which is over five metres tall, marks the centre of the exhibition. Resembling a gate or triumphal arch, it recalls the popular fairground attraction where one is invited to test one’s strength – the “High Striker”. However, instead of on a vertical tower, here the player’s strength is not tested in the usual manner. If the lever is struck with the right amount of force, the puck shoots up and over to the other side where the other player then “counter-strikes”. The image of futility is thus metaphorically duplicated as the exhibition space turns into a virtual combat zone.
“Unruhige Ecke” (Disquiet corner) comprises a tangled cast-aluminium lanyard which sections off a small zone of the gallery, thus ostensibly banishing either the spectator or the segregated area – or indeed both.
The graphic image of a large dial in “Leistungsverzeichnis” (Performance index) enables the viewer to assess their personal performance with benchmarks ranging from “mummy’s boy” to “superman”. Yet the dial is without hands and the necessary instructions for its use are also missing.
In “Klassenfoto” (Class photograph), the spectator is confronted with 31 depictions of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Almost incarnate in appearance, the individual portraits are both communally and compositionally united in the group portrait. This illustrious crowd of supernatural heroes resembles a sworn community free of any attributes relating to time or nationality.
Benjamin Bergmann’s exhibition “links oben unten rechts” compels us to seek answers in our inner selves, our past lives and in history, as well as in everyday images and objects. In their blatant functionality, the works and the objects incorporated appear to hold ready promises, which they are, however, ultimately not prepared to keep. In “Ring My Bell”, for instance, the two bells – connected by a rope in order to produce a “turn” – cannot be made to ring. Yet engraved on the bells, the captions “ding” and “dong” do at least offer some hope that we may hear the sound of a familiar voice.
Translated from the German by Oliver Kossack
Top left, bottom right
13 September – 25 October 2014
Our daily striving is marked by our need for direction and our quest for meaning. The question as to why, how and where things happen constantly drives humans to come together in communities and other alliances as a means of enhancing the power of the people.
On the occasion of this year’s Rundgang at the Leipzig Baumwollspinnerei, the exhibition “links oben unten rechts” (Top left, bottom right) by Benjamin Bergmann (born in 1968 in Würzburg) takes the visitor on an emotional roller-coaster ride through a myriad of feelings, hopes and desires. The works in the exhibition revolve around the notion of the promise of salvation through religion, as well as the social event and community spectacle. By juxtaposing emotional and physical experience, Bergmann’s works confront us with critical questions whilst also challenging the promises of salvation and prospective recovery on a journey determined by constantly recurring disorientation.
The object entitled “links oben unten rechts”, which is over five metres tall, marks the centre of the exhibition. Resembling a gate or triumphal arch, it recalls the popular fairground attraction where one is invited to test one’s strength – the “High Striker”. However, instead of on a vertical tower, here the player’s strength is not tested in the usual manner. If the lever is struck with the right amount of force, the puck shoots up and over to the other side where the other player then “counter-strikes”. The image of futility is thus metaphorically duplicated as the exhibition space turns into a virtual combat zone.
“Unruhige Ecke” (Disquiet corner) comprises a tangled cast-aluminium lanyard which sections off a small zone of the gallery, thus ostensibly banishing either the spectator or the segregated area – or indeed both.
The graphic image of a large dial in “Leistungsverzeichnis” (Performance index) enables the viewer to assess their personal performance with benchmarks ranging from “mummy’s boy” to “superman”. Yet the dial is without hands and the necessary instructions for its use are also missing.
In “Klassenfoto” (Class photograph), the spectator is confronted with 31 depictions of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Almost incarnate in appearance, the individual portraits are both communally and compositionally united in the group portrait. This illustrious crowd of supernatural heroes resembles a sworn community free of any attributes relating to time or nationality.
Benjamin Bergmann’s exhibition “links oben unten rechts” compels us to seek answers in our inner selves, our past lives and in history, as well as in everyday images and objects. In their blatant functionality, the works and the objects incorporated appear to hold ready promises, which they are, however, ultimately not prepared to keep. In “Ring My Bell”, for instance, the two bells – connected by a rope in order to produce a “turn” – cannot be made to ring. Yet engraved on the bells, the captions “ding” and “dong” do at least offer some hope that we may hear the sound of a familiar voice.
Translated from the German by Oliver Kossack