KW Institute for Contemporary Art

The exhibition Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief by the Berlin-based artist Michael Stevenson (born in 1964, NZ) presents an unconventional invocation of his practice over the past 35 years. Since the 1980s Stevenson has developed an artistic language that operates at the juncture of economy, technology, education, and faith, exploring the infrastructural systems that condition these disciplines and their entanglement. The exhibition marks Stevenson’s first institutional solo presentation in Berlin and presents a focused revision of his work, in which early paintings are brought into dialogue with more recent expansive installation.

Fragmentation becomes the default mode to display older bodies of work akin to the boneyards of industry. Navigation in these galleries is through analogy—that of a great fish or a whale’s digestive tract. In this way, architecture becomes anatomy and, by extension, the contents therein, on the floor, on the wall, studies in its entrails. With this exhibition, Stevenson provides insights from the belly of our constructed world to raise awareness that disproving rational theories does not automatically and irrevocably equal disbelief.

Curator: Anna Gritz
Assistant Curator: Léon Kruijswijk