Seed Disturbances

March 5 to April 9, 2022
Potsdamerstraße 97, 10785 Berlin

With editions by Hanne Darboven, Tacita Dean, Aleksandra Domanović, Ayşe Erkmen, Lena Henke, Jenny Holzer, Dorothy Iannone, On Kawara, Wilhelm Klotzek, Alicja Kwade, Inge Mahn, Matt Mullican, Kay Rosen, Carolee Schneemann and Rosemarie Trockel

“Rejoice! Our times are intolerable. Take courage, for the worst is a harbinger of the best. Only dire circumstance can precipitate the overthrow of oppressors. The old and corrupt must be laid to waste before the just can triumph. Opposition identifies and isolates the enemy. Conflict of interest must be seen for what it is. Do not support palliative gestures; they confuse the people and delay the inevitable confrontation for it jeopardizes the well-being of the majority. Contradiction will be heightened. The reckoning will be hastened by the staging of seed disturbances. The apocalypse will blossom.” – Jenny Holzer “Inflammatory Essays”

At first no one even knew, who plastered those colorful square posters around New York City’s neighborhoods. Posters with 100 words in 20 lines, that asserted highly contradictive content, while matching their surrounding of choice. Later, you would find out, that these essays contained voices from extremely right to left winged ideology – to mention only a few. Jenny Holzer, who assembled these scraps in “Inflammatory Essays”, deliberately hid the authors’ names, as she found, “’when things are categorized, they tend to be dismissed.’”[1] Rather, her essays turned into seeds of expressions and claims, scattered through the city, that might have left the reader more likely with a question than an answer.

Like essays, seeds bundle different strains of information to be distributed and further multiply. This counts for (non) radical content as well as for bioengineered seeds, as they spread across lobes of brain or the soil. Even artworks can be seen as hodgepodges of information that either aim to divert, disturb or use their particles original message. While Jenny Holzer introduces the quoted words to a new realm of agency, Carolee Schneemann on the other hand establishes the artist’s body as an integral material of her work. Thus, the artist’s body becomes not only a medium to reflect upon, but further an uncovered agent in her “kinetic paintings”.

The exhibition at Klosterfelde Edition gathers editions, that reflect on the movement of information, be it the written word on a poster or a book, the calculation of time, the body as a medium and agent, or the medium film itself, whereas being contributed by Edition René Block, Borch Editions, Editioni Conz, the gallery Barbara Wien, as well as the gallery Emanuel Layr in Vienna.

[1] https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-jenny-holzers-inflammatory-essays-perfect-work-times

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