Aggregate

Alexandra Pirici

Pirici addresses an “ark” as a process, in which information is subjectively selected and transformed, fitting into categories such as life forms, sounds from Earth, cultural achievements, scientific techniques and knowledge, but also inanimate objects and the uncategorizable. The chosen elements are redefined in the process of their transmission. In Aggregate, this action emerges in a constant stream of bodies, which includes the visitors of the exhibition; selected common memories belonging to different canons and historical stages emerge and disappear through enactment. In this way, the living environment adapts, multiplies and amplifies individual and collective proposals; instances or images—either canonical or less recognizable—undergo a process of abstraction, of being embodied, digested and produced anew. By hybridizing the one with the many, what is archived and understood as exemplary is revealed as always multiple, as always becoming. The performed selection is distributed in time, throughout the duration of the exhibition, by irregular patterns, emphasizing the randomness and fragmentary access to the personal and collective stack of memory and knowledge.

Aggregate invites us to experience how we define our identity in a collective and how this process is shaped by the selective recollection of memories we would like to save for ourselves in the present and the future. In exploring Pirici’s project, the usual distance between the work of art and the viewer is deconstructed by the mass of the performers occupying the space, stimulating and influencing the movement of the visitors. The art space is questioned and jointly defined. The movement towards the work of art becomes part of the work itself, as the work emerges from movement.

Performers: Alaa Eita Abdullatif, Caroline Alexander, Anajara Laisa Amarante, Malin Andreasson, Irene Anglada, Anna Aristarkhova, Irem Avci, Sara Axelsson, Maria Baroncea, Julia Barrette, Madeleine Birch, Helena Botto, Jules Boutet, Telmo Branco, Valeria Busdraghi, Martha Hincapié Charry, Ariel Cohen, Senya Corda, Claire Cote, Carmen Coțofană, Philipp Czech, Sandhya Daemgen, Madalina Dan, Livia Delgado, Simone Detig, Viviana Druga, Austin Fagan, Forough Fami, Josephine Findeisen, Judith Förster, Florence Freitag, Marc Gabriel, Juan Felipe Amaya González, Ronja Häring, Martin Hansen, Alice Heyward, Mathea Hoffmann, Jasmin İhraç, Junko Iwahashi, Anna Jarrige, Ayesha Katz, Daniella Kaufmann, Katie Kelly, Kathrin Knöpfle, Miriam Kongstad, Layton Lachman, Laura Leiner, Francesca Lisette, Lola Lustosa, Rolando Matsangos, Rachael Mauney, Jos McKain, Zwoisy Mears-Clarke, Marissa Medal, Janosa Mike, Angela Millano, Reza Mirabi, Isadhora Müller, Negroma, Ania Nowak, Sonia Noya, Lulu Obermayer, Francisco Bejarano Montes de Oca, Yoko Onodera, Birte Opitz, Assi Pakkanen, Julia Plawgo, Dmitriy Povernov, Emily Ranford, Marie Rechsteiner, Paul Riemann, Julia Rodriguez, Stefan Röben, Marc Saad, Kristianne Salcines, Kareth Schaffer, Renae Shadler, Laura Signoriello, Rodolfo Piazza Pfitscher da Silva, Hanna Kritten Tangsoo, Brett Thompson, Melina Torstensson, André Uerba, Lina Valverde, Alexandra Vasilieva, Jeronimo Vignera, Madeleine Rose White, Frida Yngvesson, Tomer Zirkilevich, Patrick Ziza

Photos: Neuer Berliner Kunstverein / Joseph Devitt Tremblay

Berlin, NBK, 2017

https://www.nbk.org/en/ausstellungen/_pirici.html