FORT MORGEN LETZTER TAG
Spanning through each room of the Kunsthaus, the title "MORGEN LETZTER TAG" – in English “last day tomorrow” – defins the program of this exhibition. The motive is picked up right at the beginning, in the storefront window on the ground floor. There FORT sets up a viewing situation, showcasing a sign with an engraving of just this motto. Translating a found image and exploring the phrase with regards to content, a process of transformation is set in motion, which determines the atmosphere of the entire exhibition.
The exhibition rooms seem to follow the storyboard of „MORGEN LETZTER TAG“ turning the viewers into protagonists of their own memories and stories. The act is accompanied musically through the piece SAME SAME, 2012: The jukebox, which stands in a low-lit room, can be activated through a coin purchased when buying the entry ticket to the show. It plays the ever same song “Cool Sommer” by Bob Lind. After several repetitions the at first touching song becomes more and more hollow. The principal “continuous loop” reappears in the garden sprinklers rotating in endless circles on the courtyard.
The first floor presents several sculptures, which in their compilation draw a laconic image of “childhood” and create the impression of a vacation resort after the end of season. Manipulation and over-forming makes the banal objects look absurd and surreal. FALSCHE BEUTE (WRONG PREY), 2012, for example, a garden hose, which seems to have ‘swallowed’ a ball. An inflatable mattress floating on the ceiling carries the title HE, 2012, as in ‘he’ or also the chemical short for helium, adds to the fey mood. The suggested suspension literally appears to be released from gravity; rational explanatory models no longer apply either.
Longing for childhood is complementary to the endeavour of growing up. The video THE SHINING, 2012, captures the clash of childish care-freeness and the disillusioning experiences of growing up. It shows children and teenagers in a disco dancing to techno music. The title of the piece not least refers to Stanley Kubrick’s horror movie of the same name, shot in 1980, in which the initial sense of lightness slowly gives way to nightmarish fear.
Solo exhibition with FORT
Curated by Petra Reichensperger
March 8. 2013 - April 21. 2013
About the artists
The artist collective FORT was founded in 2008 by Anna Jandt (*1980), Jenny Kropp (*1978) and Alberta Niemann (*1982).
Their first joint exhibition took place the same year at Kunst-Werke Berlin, where the collective presented the installation "Hotel Marienbad". In 2009 the acclaimed exhibition "Point Gray" took place at the New Museum Weserburg in Bremen. Since then, FORT participated in several international group exhibitions, amongst others at Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw ("Wystawa", 2010), at La Maison Rouge in Paris ("Memories of the Future - La Olbricht Collection", 2011), and at Kunst-Werke Berlin ("ONE ON ONE", 2012). In 2012, they showed their installation "Leck" at Galerie Crone (Berlin). The artist collective has received numerous awards and prices, most recently the prestigious Karl Schmidt-Rottluff scholarship 2012.
Kunsthaus Dresden has worked with FORT since early 2012. In the group exhibition "Settings", which took place from the 3rd of August to the 14th October 2012 at Kunsthaus Dresden, FORT was represented with the film installation “LOU”, 2012. At the festival "Testing (Re-)Production", which took place from the 11th to the 12th of January 2013 in cooperation with Muzeum Sztuki in Łodz, Poland, the artists performed “LOW LID”, 2012/2013 in the museum’s temporal exhibition “Correspondences. Modern Art and Universalism.”