| | | |  | | | | der Erlkönig: whiteout_Singularität © Bettina Witteveen | | | | | | Götterfunken feuertrunken der Erlkönig: whiteout | | | | Installation in the "Forbidden City" of Wünsdorf near Berlin | | | | 17 June – 1 July, 2018 | | | Vernissage: Saturday, 16 June 2018, 4–6pm RSVP until Tuesday, 12 Juni 2018
lydia@lydiaschmidconsulting.com or +49 176 31788414 Shuttle-Service:
2:30 pm Berlin-Friedrichstraße, Tränenpalast, Reichstagufer 17, 10117 Berlin
6:00 back to Berlin-Friedrichstraße | | |  | | | Former military barracks in the
Forbidden City of Wünsdorf near Berlin Hauptallee 114, 15806 Zossen
Mon-Fri 3-8pm; Sat, Sun 12-8pm
Bettina Witteveen
www.bettinawitteveen.com |  |
| | | | | |  | | | | der Erlkönig: whiteout_Robotik © Bettina Witteveen | | | | | | Artist and activist Bettina WitteVeen continues her decades-long exploration into war and the human condition in an upcoming site-specific installation in the former Soviet military town of Wünsdorf, forty kilometres south of Berlin, from June 17 until July 1, 2018. This is the first time these abandoned buildings and scarred terrain will be used as an exhibition site.
In the Wünsdorf exhibition, the New York-based German artist continues to pursue her practice of presenting her work at unique, historically important places, so as to turn them into a haunting reality. WitteVeen’s installations explore the influence of historical events on individuals, placing them into the diachronic context of current political and social discourse.
Known as the "Forbidden City", Wünsdorf served as the largest military base of the USSR in Europe after 1945, designated as an exclusion zone for the former citizens of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) until the withdrawal of the Russians in 1994.
The complex history and physical condition of this site prompted WitteVeen to investigate pressing ethical questions in regards to the progress in military- and nanotechnology as well as in artificial intelligence. The installation "Götterfunken feuertrunken der Erlkönig: whiteout" weaves together film, photography and sculpture in a "Gesamtkunstwerk" that becomes a moving allegory of what is happening in the present, provoking an emotional response centred on empathy. | | | | | |  | | | | Götterfunken_Film © Bettina Witteveen | | | | | | Bettina WitteVeen is a mid-career German artist residing in New York. Born in Mannheim, Germany, she graduated in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, mastering in American History, from Wellesley College and studied law at Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich. Her interest in history and in the philosophy of the law, and her commitment to human rights, are the conceptual basis for her art.
WitteVeen’s latest major work was a month-long installation at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York in October 2015. The installation titled "When We Were Soldiers… once and young" included more than 100 carefully staged photographs that transformed an abandoned historic hospital building on the site into an epic meditation on war and healing. It was the fourth part of a decades-long project collectively titled The Heart of Darkness that has involved installations in Toulouse, France, New York’s Goethe Institute, and in what was once an underground munitions factory and air raid bunker in Berlin.
In November 2018, on invitation by the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Memorial-Church, Berlin, one of the most important national memorials to the horrors of war, WitteVeen will present her installation titled "II.II.I8 Dämmerung" as the fifth part of her global antiwar project "The Heart of Darkness", addressing the 100th anniversary of the ending of World War I. She will transform a side chapel of the church by placing a lifesize, cruciform photographic sculpture with video, photography and a sound installation in an emotionally and visually arresting tableau.
WitteVeen hopes her personal visual language will contribute to the emergence of a culture deeply rooted in humanism and pacifism. Motivated by the ramifications of Donald Trump’s presidency in the United States and across the world, WitteVeen has founded the All Women’s Progress Party, a not-forprofit, independent organization that provides a platform for women’s rights and fights for social, political, and economic equality.
WitteVeen’s works are in several private and public collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art. | | | | | |  | | | | der Erlkönig: whiteout_big data © Bettina Witteveen | | | | | | unsubscribe here
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