Die Welt als Bühne
n.b.k. Berlin
November 21, 2009–January 10, 2010
Opening: Friday, November 20, 7 pm
Curator: Solvej Helweg Ovesen
Artists: Tamy Ben-Tor, Claus Carstensen/Peter Bonde/Thomas Andersen, Mads Lynnerup, Jan Mančuška,
HuskMitNavn, Jan Northoff, Tilman Wendland, Carey Young
Streets, squares, parks, supermarkets, Internet portals, and other sites have become stages of urban life that
allow us to display our everyday actions and behaviors. Many artists today work with the theatrical aspect of
staging the self in everyday life. The question of the theatrical has taken on a new relevance due to the multiple
forms of self-staging and lifestyle. If everyone plays the main role in his or her own lifestyle film, what is the
role of art? The exhibition Die Welt als Bühne (The World as Stage) uses the increasing trend towards lifestyle
theater as an opportunity to confront ourselves with alternative life models and to show how existing forms of
self-staging can be reinterpreted in an emancipatory fashion.
In their work, the participating artists mediate among art, media staging, and real life. In the exhibition, stages
are created (Tilman Wendland) to show collective forms of acting (Mads Lynnerup, Jan Northoff), or
interaction takes place with already exiting platforms for performance (Jan Mančuška, Carey Young). The
exhibition is a combination of performance, video, photography, as well as the stagings of virtual and
architectural platforms that challenge in performative terms existing conventions of the theatrical.
To accompany the exhibition, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König is publishing Die Welt als Bühne by
Solvej Helweg Ovesen, 126 pages with color illustrations, German/English,
Kontakt:
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein
Chausseestrasse 128/129
D-10115 Berlin
Deutschland
T +49 30 2807020
F +49 30 2807019
www.nbk.org