Michael Stevenson
Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief
03 Jul - 19 Sep 2021
Michael Stevenson, Serene Velocity in Practice: MC510/CS183, 2017/21. Commissioned by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki with commissioning partners the Biennale of Sydney 2018 and Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA Commission supported by the Contemporary Benefactors of Auckland Art Gallery, Chartwell Trust, Auckland Contemporary Art Trust, Auckland Art Gallery International Ambassadors, and Michael Lett, Auckland. Installation view of the exhibition Michael Stevenson Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021; Courtesy the artist, Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland, and Fine Arts, Sydney; Photo: Frank Sperling
Michael Stevenson, Serene Velocity in Practice: MC510/CS183, 2017/21. Commissioned by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki with commissioning partners the Biennale of Sydney 2018 and Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA Commission supported by the Contemporary Benefactors of Auckland Art Gallery, Chartwell Trust, Auckland Contemporary Art Trust, Auckland Art Gallery International Ambassadors, and Michael Lett, Auckland. Installation view of the exhibition Michael Stevenson Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021; Courtesy the artist, Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland, and Fine Arts, Sydney; Photo: Frank Sperling
Michael Stevenson, Serene Velocity in Practice: MC510/CS183, 2017/21. Commissioned by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki with commissioning partners the Biennale of Sydney 2018 and Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA Commission supported by the Contemporary Benefactors of Auckland Art Gallery, Chartwell Trust, Auckland Contemporary Art Trust, Auckland Art Gallery International Ambassadors, and Michael Lett, Auckland. Installation view of the exhibition Michael Stevenson Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021; Courtesy the artist, Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland, and Fine Arts, Sydney; Photo: Frank Sperling
Michael Stevenson, Serene Velocity in Practice: MC510/CS183, 2017/21. Commissioned by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki with commissioning partners the Biennale of Sydney 2018 and Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA Commission supported by the Contemporary Benefactors of Auckland Art Gallery, Chartwell Trust, Auckland Contemporary Art Trust, Auckland Art Gallery International Ambassadors, and Michael Lett, Auckland. Installation view of the exhibition Michael Stevenson Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021; Courtesy the artist, Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland, and Fine Arts, Sydney; Photo: Frank Sperling
Michael Stevenson, Strategic-Level Spiritual Warfare, 2014/21. Installation view of the exhibition Michael Stevenson Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021. Courtesy the artist; Photo: Frank Sperling
Michael Stevenson, Strategic-Level Spiritual Warfare, 2014/21. Installation view of the exhibition Michael Stevenson Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021. Courtesy the artist; Photo: Frank Sperling
Michael Stevenson, Call Me Immendorff, 2000/02 & 21. Installation view of the exhibition Michael Stevenson Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021. Courtesy the artist, Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland & Fine Arts, Sydney; Photo: Frank Sperling
Left: Michael Stevenson, Call Me Immendorff, 2000/02 & 21; Courtesy the artist, Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland & Fine Arts, Sydney; right: Michael Stevenson, Strategic-Level Spiritual Warfare, 2014/21; Courtesy the artist. Installation view of the exhibition Michael Stevenson Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021; Photo: Frank Sperling
Michael Stevenson, The Cheap Heat, 2021, (Incl. Color Television Camera Fese KC U 40, 1969/76; Zoom Lens Schneider Variogon, ca. 1967; Loan Stiftung Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin). Installation view of the exhibition Michael Stevenson Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021. Courtesy the artist; Photo: Frank Sperling
Michael Stevenson, Hold Up to Live Camera, 2021. Installation view of the exhibition Michael Stevenson Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021. Courtesy the artist, Photo: Frank Sperling
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
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