FAMED, exhibition views Stadtgalerie Künstlerhaus Lauenburg 2024 – Photos: Marcel Stammen
FAMED POSITION #02
What is to be done?
Opening with artist talk
24 November 2023 – 6.00 pm
Sebastian M. Kretzschmar and Jan Thomaneck in conversation with Marita Landgraf
in the Stadtgalerie Künstlerhaus Lauenburg
Welcoming Speech:
Ingrid Bussmann, 1. Chairwoman Künstlerhaus Lauenburg e.V.
Window exhibition
25 November 2023 – 18 February 2024
everyday 11 am – 10 pm
01 Birgit Brenner, „Hundred Seconds to Midnight“, 2020, 02 Maximilian Glas, „Weather Constructions“, 2021-2022, 03 Mischa Leinkauf, „Fiction of a Non-Entry // Fiktion einer Nicht-Einreise“, 2019, 04 Rita Macedo, „Farewell recording for an observer of an unknown time and place“, 2023, 05 Michael Sailstorfer, „Tränen“, 2015
Filmprogramme
2. Februar – 18. Februar 2024
Birgit Brenner, Maximilian Glas, Mischa Leinkauf, Rita Macedo, Michael Sailstorfer
Curated by FAMED and Marita Landgraf.
Fridays & Saturdays 2.00 – 10.00 pm as window exhibition.
Sundays 2.00 – 5.00 pm
the Stadtgalerie is open.
Entrance against donation.
Finissage on 18 February
Open discussion 2.30 – 4.00 pm
We invite you to an exchange over coffee and cake to explore the question “What is to be done?”
Additional information about FAMED www.famed.studio
FAMED, Opening with artist talk Stadtgalerie Künstlerhaus Lauenburg 2023 – Photos: Dirk Eisermann
The works of the artist collective FAMED reflect private and political relationships, becoming the starting point for dialogue-based and medially diverse work complexes – language-based, in light installations, situational arrangements or interventions in public space. Pop-cultural references and a performative sign language are used to create seemingly tragicomic spaces of thought that negotiate themes such as identity and productivity as well as power and presence in the context of current social issues. The places in which the social materialises and is simultaneously produced, as well as the critical examination of the art world, are integral components of a resistant practice. In this, FAMED encounters a “capitalist melancholy” – the all-encompassing maxim of success, whose ironic refraction seems to be the only way out. Marcel Raabe
The neon work “What is to be done?” was created in 2012 for the former site of the AEG washing machine factory on Fürther Straße in Nuremberg. The site was closed in 2007 and production was relocated to Poland. In the summer of the same year, an investment company took over the site and began revitalising it. The aim was to develop this unique factory site into an urban neighbourhood and to establish a wide range of uses from science and research to art and culture.
The artist collective FAMED installed the lettering “What is to be done?” on one of the last unrenovated factory buildings, which addresses the transformation process of the site and its future. In the course of further site development, the studio building “Auf AEG Nord”, where 90 artists had been working until then, had to be closed in 2021. Neonarbeit also had to move and is now making a stopover at the Künstlerhaus Lauenburg city gallery before finding a new home in the former baking yeast factory in Nuremberg-Buch next year. Whether in Nuremberg or Lauenburg, the focus is on social change processes and spaces of possibility. “Was ist zu tun?”/”What is to be done!” can be both a question and a challenge. In its ambiguity, the work puts various options for action and positions up for debate. For example, what requirements are necessary to preserve cultural spaces and support those involved? At the same time, the demand points to the need to take active action and make decisions.
As an institution, association, scholarship and exhibition centre, Künstlerhaus Lauenburg and the Stadtgalerie are in a continuous process of change in which their own actions and their framework conditions are constantly being questioned and re-negotiated.
Biographical information
The artist collective FAMED consists of Sebastian M. Kretzschmar and Jan Thomaneck. Kilian Schellbach was also a member of FAMED from its foundation in 2003 until 2013. Their works have been represented in numerous national and international exhibitions, including solo exhibitions at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (Switzerland), the Kunsthalle Bremerhaven, the Kunstverein Braunschweig, the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, the Centre of Contemporary Art Andratx (Spain) and the Villa Massimo Gallery in Rome. FAMED has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Manifesta 7 in Rovereto (Italy), Steirischer Herbst in Graz (Austria), Weserburg – Museum für moderne Kunst in Bremen, Kunstmuseum Bochum, De Appel Amsterdam (Netherlands), The Brno House of Arts (Czech Republic), neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) in Berlin, Stadtgalerie Kiel as well as the New Media Art Festival Chongqing (China) and the Longbridge Lightfestival in Birmingham (England). FAMED has received various prizes and scholarships, including the Villa Massimo Rome Prize in 2019/20.
We would like to thanks Coloured Fields GmbH for the loan.
The exhibition is supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of the State of Schleswig-Holstein.
