Kunstverein Nürnberg

SPACE ODDITY - A CAPSULE EXHIBITION
David Havrony, Peter Hermans, Yana Rotner, Ernst Sylvester, Amir Yatziv, Büro Unfun
5 December 2014 – 25 January 2015

The group exhibition SPACE ODDITY, organized by Büro Unfun, a collective of graphic artists from Nuremberg and the artist Ernst Sylvester, brings together different positions on contemporary art from Israel and Germany. Based out of many visits to Nuremberg, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the connection of the participating artists has been forged by intense conversations regarding their individual artistic positions. This jointly developed project aims to transform the interaction which has derived from a personal, friendship-like relationship into an actual space at the Kunstverein Nuremberg as a physical encounter of artworks and notions.

The title SPACE ODDITY references the first music video shot in outer space – a cover version of a song by David Bowie, performed by ISS-Commander Chris Hadfield. The title refers to the simultaneous feelings of curiosity and anxiety one might feel when experiencing still unexplored places. Inspired by the International Space Station (ISS) – a project that enables scientists coming from all over the world and having grown up within different political systems to live together peacefully in a satellite – the exhibition facilitates the possibility to meet in an experimental and concentrated environment. The idea of a time- and space capsule with different social and physical laws creates a contact zone, in which one can impartially and inquisitively think about the future.

Like the structure of a space station, the exhibition understands itself as a modular system, where intense interactions can be created as soon as its forms and functions overlap. The interdisciplinary working Büro Unfun created a modular spatial design that sets the single works in relation to each other. This concept fosters the emergence of a greater flexible unit.

Creating an experimental space that refers to the idea of outer space is not an attempt to induce unawareness or indifference to political and historical issues. On the contrary, SPACE ODDITY aims to establish a meeting place that shifts perspectives through artistic positions. The exhibition tries to initiate and maintain examinations with reasonable ease on familiar topics – such as historical and current political developments – and condensing them into a multi-layered dialogue.

In the Kunstverein Nuremberg, the artworks by Amir Yatziv, David Havrony and Yana Rotner, students and graduates of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem, converge with the positions by Ernst Sylvester (lives and works in Leipzig/Nuremberg) and Peter Hermans (lives and works in Leipzig). The Büro Unfun (based in Nuremberg), with experience in realizing several artistic projects and collaborations, is in charge of the spatial design and the visual communication for the exhibition. Unfun operates on the cut surface of art and design, dissolving boundaries by adopting and re-interpreting artistic concepts and methods.