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'Hereafter' by Cezary Poniatowski & Sami Schlichting at MÉLANGE, Cologne

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We apologies for the possible inconvenience of having dirty shoes after leaving the space. It´s the artists work, appreciate it; please. It nicely smells of rabbit cage and feels strangely cluttered, so we are happy. In the following, a loose string of allusions:

A description, which is somewhat unrelated to the show: 

The French journalist Marie is surprised by a tsunami during her vacation. Miraculously, she survives. The young Marcus must witness how a beloved person is killed in a car accident. The American factory worker George is desperate because his gift of talking to people from beyond the world is a burden to him because he can not have a normal relationship. 

[Google plot summary for Hereafter, 2011. 85% of the users liked this movie]

I am unpackingmy library. Yes, I am. The books are not yet on the shelves, not yet touched by the mild boredom of order. […]Instead, I must ask you to join mydisorder of crates that have been wrenched open, t he air saturated with the dust of wood, the floor covered with torn paper, to join me among piles of volumes that are seeing daylight again after two years of darkness, so that you may be ready to share with me a bit of the mood. […]Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector´s passion borders on the chaos of memories. More than that: the chance, the fate, that suffuse the past before my eyes are conspicuously present in the accustomedconfirmof these books.

[Excerpt: Benjamin, Walter: Ich packe meine Bibliothek aus, in: Walter Benjamin. Gesammelte Schriften, Suhrkamp, Berlin 1991]

Still
: Poniatowski’s and Schlichting’s pieces feel like this plot, and most importantly, that there is also a car present. They are defragmented objects. In Poniatowski’s case they are covered in faux leather and headliner material, with air dugs, vents and other familiar moments, but with an unactivated function. For Schlichting we find his favored combination of clay and hay in amorphous structures which sit enthroned on plinths of a similar surface.

Since the beginning of the year the artists Cezary Poniatowski and Sami Schlichting are bouncing ideas about their works, their research and their ideas for our space back and forth. They finally settled on the process that is made accessible in ‘Hereafter’: a claustrophobic, estranged storage space-esque situation, in which the works seem to be in a state of flux; neither settled nor finished. The chaotic structure as a result of an artistic exchange, the unfinished appearance are key elements of the show, trying to push the ideas of the individual objects towards a time where they are neither artworks nor simple volumes in a storage compartment.

 — Text by MÉLANGE, September 6, 2019

6.9.19 — 13.10.19

MÉLANGE

'ABSINTHE', Group Show Curated by PLAGUE at Smena, Kazan

'Pupila' by Elizabeth Burmann Littin at Two seven two gallery, Toronto

'Auxiliary Lights' by Kai Philip Trausenegger at Bildraum 07, Vienna

'Inferno' by Matthew Tully Dugan at Lomex, New York

'Зamok', Off-Site Group Project at dentistry Dr. Blumkin, Moscow

'Dog, No Leash', Group Show at Spazio Orr, Brescia

'Syllables in Heart' by Thomas Bremerstent at Salgshallen, Oslo

'Out-of-place artifact', Off-Site Project by Artem Briukhov in Birsk Fortress, Bi

'Gardening' by Daniel Drabek at Toni Areal, Zurich

'HALF TRUTHS', Group Show at Hackney Road, E2 8ET, London

'Unknown Unknowns' by Christian Roncea at West End, The Hague

'Thinking About Things That Are Thinking' by Nicolás Lamas at Meessen De Clercq,

‘Funny / Sad’, Group Show by Ian Bruner, Don Elektro & Halo, curated by Rhizome P

'Don’t Die', Group Show at No Gallery, New York

'Almost Begin' by Bronson Smillie at Afternoon Projects, Vancouver

'I'll Carry Your Heart's Gray Wing with a Trembling Hand to My Old Age', Group Sh

'hapy like a fly' by Clément Courgeon at Colette Mariana, Barcelona

'Fear of the Dark' by Jack Evans at Soup, London

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