Exhibitions: Frank Westermeyer and Sylvie Boisseau, Nadja Schöllhammer, Kim Tomczak and Lisa Steele

Frank Westermeyer and Sylvie Boisseau
»Chinesisch von Vorteil« [Chinese Is a Plus]

Both videos in Frank Westermeyer and Sylvie Boisseau’s installation »Chinesisch von Vorteil« deal with the identity of communities and how they occupy space, exploring the particular role language plays in this context. A Chinese language school in Stuttgart serves as the basis for this analysis and as a node of reciprocal movement between China and Europe. There, in separate courses, youths with a Chinese migrantional background learn their mother tongue and become a testament to the strengthened consciousness of their own culture within the Chinese community. The adult courses, on the other hand, are primarily comprised of Germans learning Mandarin Chinese as a foreign language. Westermeyer and Boisseau focus on language-school students and confront divergent views on China as a foreign country: once as a land of origin, once as a projection surface for another life.

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Nadja Schöllhammer
»Zyklop«

For her exhibition »Zyklop« Nadja Schöllhammer has developed an opulent and rampant spatial installation. Using paper as her primary material, she processes it with pencils, scalpel and gas burners, spinning it into a filigree web. Formations from the abyss and bizarre details tell of an unfolding inner life of one-time thoughts. Collective nightmares and private obsessions, media images and mythological visions make their entrance. They encircle the turning moment where control is lost and hidden forces erupt.

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Lisa Steele und Kim Tomczak
»this text / that image / these words / those pictures«

The Canadian artist duo Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak’s exhibition »this text / that image / these words / those pictures« shows image-text works that dedicate themselves to the question »What are you afraid of?« Facing Forward consists of six image-text works in which quotes from European executives are flanked by two images of the entryways of typical Stuttgart business-district and financial institutes. The second work, Gruseln in der Nacht [Bump in the night …(v2)] is a continuing series of works that emerged in cooperation with young people in various locations (Toronto, Stuttgart, Normandy). The series portrays the ambitions, expectations and especially the fears of graduates who are faced with an important decision – vocational training or university.

Exhibition Opening: Thursday, January 22, 2009, 8 pm
Exhibition Duration: Friday, January 23 to Sunday, March 8, 2009
Hours: Tues–Thurs 10am–noon & 2–5:30pm, Fri 10am–noon & 2–4pm, Sat–Sun noon–5:30pm