POSITION #03 Via Lewandowsky EN

POSITION #03 Via Lewandowsky, SOS, 2021, neon installation, and Don’t Cry, 2015/2022,
installation with cassette recorder, vaporiser, light, motion detector – Photos: SOS by Robert Schlossnickel and Don’t Cry by Dirk Eisermann

With two works by artist Via Lewandowsky, Künstler:innenhaus Lauenburg continues its POSITION series, which addresses socially relevant issues in order to open up a space for dialogue. The neon work SOS (2021) and the installation Don’t Cry (2015/2022) refer to the parallel group exhibition ‘Resonances’. This exhibition deals with the question of how we as a society can deal with uncertainties, changes and the complex challenges of our time and develop positive visions for the future. The various perspectives and feelings oscillate between feelings of threat and powerlessness to hope, longing and positive potential. This range and ambiguity is also reflected in the works exhibited by Via Lewandowsky. Advising the abandoned lover to ‘don’t you cry’ – i.e. not to cry when saying goodbye – seems just as absurd as reinterpreting the international distress signal “SOS” as a succinct ‘so so’. But it is precisely this irony and absurdity that creates an ambiguity that calls certainties into question. In German, the expression ‘so so’ is a slightly ironic or questioning comment that is not to be taken entirely seriously. In English, it stands for the mediocre description of a situation as ‘so-so’. And in free interpretation, meanings such as ‘save our souls’ or ‘save our ship’ were later devised. The alternating neon letters thus form not only two different words and meanings, but also very contrasting states of affairs. In view of current social, economic, ecological and global political developments, one might ask: Is it still okay? Really? Is there still hope? Or are we already in a threatening emergency situation?

The exhibition is funded by