Julia Werhahn

The artspring festival is an invitation to enter into contact and dialog with one another. In times when fronts are hardening and pluralism is turning into anger and violence, we use the power of images to communicate on a personal level. As global citizens, we do not want to be driven apart. This year's festival theme SHOW YOUR WOUND goes back to the Beuys installation “Show Your Wound”, in which the artist not only addresses his own vulnerability, but also that of society.

ZEIGE DEINE W_NDE: In the German language, the words “Wunde”, “Wende” and “Wände” differ in only one letter. For us, the terms are good mirrors of the present. The vulnerability of individuals has become political collateral damage that is generally accepted. “Show your wound” is an invitation to make personal horror visible. What changes of direction and turning points, perhaps even revolutions, have shaped life “Show your turn”, your maneuver on the high seas. “Show your walls” describes the boundaries within which we move. Read together, it paints a picture of the circumstances in which we live.

SHOW YOUR WALLS means showing what is. How do artists deal with their “walls” and “wounds”? It's about the wall in the studio, the walls that surround us or are in our heads, wounds on the body and soul, boundaries and passages that need to be overcome or crossed, either personally or as part of society. At the same time, we see the title as a call to resist everyday crises and to break free from our own immobility and rigidity. It is very important to us to create opportunities for communication with the artspring festival and its program. In a world that threatens to break apart, in times when mental and real walls are being erected, art can only be helpful if it overcomes boundaries.

Freedom and human rights, democracy and the rule of law are our guiding principles and we actively oppose discriminatory, derogatory and exclusionary behavior. We resolutely oppose all forms of terror and hatred, extremism and racism and advocate a peaceful world based on solidarity. We are convinced that the global language of art can decisively counter the increasing violence.

Introduced in summer 2016 to mark the 20th anniversary of the Kunsthaus Kaufbeuren, the sixth exhibition of this format will take place in summer 2024 under the now established title BLICK FANG. Works by young, up-and-coming artists from all over Germany will be shown every two years.

Today, the term "Heimat" (homeland) is used in a downright inflationary manner; at the same time, there are bitter disputes over the authority to define it, often along sharp ideological lines. But what does it actually mean when we talk about "homeland"? For some, "homeland" refers to their origins, roots and cultural identity. For others, the term is more of an abstract concept that is ambiguous, changeable and difficult to define. - In the course of globalization and not least due to numerous migration movements, a territorial understanding is increasingly leading to controversy and social tensions. Above all, aspects of culture, religion, values and customs, but also personal feelings within a society are important factors and driving forces here. However, despite all the differences, the quest for security and belonging is always a unifying driving force in the "search for home".
The artists - "BLICK FANG 2024"

Boglárka Balassa | Alex Bex | Florence Bühr | Susanne Bürner | Thesea Rigou Efstathopoulos | Mirjam Elburn | Gregor EsKa | Valerie Funk | Benedikt Gahl | Julius Gödtel | Ulrike Hannemann | Marlet Heckhoff | Markus Hoffmann | Markus Mars Hoffmann | Iska Jehl | Nari Jo | Mariella Kerscher | Lars Klingenberg | Thomas Kober | Martin Löw | Sol Namgung | Jana Sophia Nolle | Celine O'Neal | Jennifer Oellerich | Ivanka Penjak | Anne Pruy | Jens Rausch | Laura Schmelzer | Tom Schmelzer | Alina Schweizer | Mor Shauli | Julia Smirnova | Sarah Straßmann | Sven Weber | Stefan Wehmeier | Manfred Wendel | Julia Werhahn | Denise Winter

This exhibition marks the beginning of our exploration of the intricate dynamics and dialogues surrounding these topics. Berlin, with 830,000 foreign residents from 170 nations, is a cosmopolitan city that highlights the importance of addressing and reflecting on our understanding of concepts like home and the feeling of belonging.

The exhibition delves into De-Construction, probing where we stand and why. It is important to us to unpack these complexities through a people-centered approach, exploring questions like ‘Am I enough?,’ and, ‘Am I seen?’ from various perspectives gathered through our open call, sparking engaging dialogue.

Artists:

• Steffen Blunk

• Tatiana Bulanova

• Seweryn Jański

• Olga Mos

• Igor Ponosov

• Joanna Rusinek

• Raimund Schucht

• Foteini Tatsi

• Jingwen Yao

• Julia Werhahn

ArtArtist is an extraordinary art show in the former Tech Center of ZF Friedrichshafen AG in Düsseldorf - Oberkassel.

Parallel to Art Düsseldorf, only artist groups, off-spaces, art spaces, new and young formats and studio communities are presented in order to demonstrate and multiply the relevance and reach of networks for professional artists.

Since 2005, quotes from past decades (mostly from the 1980s) headlined the annual One Night Group Shows at the end of November at Spor Klübü. Other projects and especially the pandemic had led to a 4-year break of this show format. This year the thread is picked up again.

"ZERO TOLERANCE" stands as a term for many dubious strategies. Especially as a strategy of crime fighting and crime prevention. This allows the police - preventively, so to speak - to intervene or crack down hard on regulatory violations below the crime threshold, so-called petty offenses. It became known in the 1990s with the "New York Model", championed by Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his police chief Bill Bratton, who based it on the "Broken Windows Theory" that had already emerged in the 1980s.

As a result, the zero-tolerance strategy became a worldwide export hit and also partly ended up in German criminology and politics. The success and efficiency of the strategy remained doubtful and were apparently never clearly proven. The negative sides, however, were obvious: exaggerated restrictions on freedom, the emergence of excessive police arbitrariness and violence, the establishment of a control and police state, and so on. In the 1990s, running a red light on a bicycle in Manhattan or openly consuming alcohol on the street meant fearing that one could end up in jail.

Another zero-tolerance strategy was pursued by the U.S. government under President Trump many years later with regard to immigration to the United States. If legal or illegal immigrants as well as asylum seekers had, among other things, an entry in their national or foreign criminal records, they were immediately detained and deported or turned away. Families, e.g. children from their parents, were also separated from each other without consideration.

What if you turn zero tolerance around and look at it from a different angle? For example, precisely against these political intentions and actors and in the political demarcation against the right. It cannot be that, for example, a party like the AfD in Germany is given tolerance just because it reaches people and wins votes, but builds on an extreme right-wing, national socialist, racist and anti-Semitic mindset. Anyone who abandons his zero tolerance limit at this point, who enters his firewall, succumbs to complicity and makes right-wing extremism more acceptable.

Interaction in the outdoor space
Residential buildings towering into the sky, blue, green, tile look with motif, an empty can of coffee cream jammed into the side exit of Netto.
On our exploratory tours through Lichtenberg, we collected photographic samples and put them together like a jigsaw puzzle (like a Rubik's cube of narrative scraps). The samples in the form of narrow vertical and horizontal strips show sections of Lichtenberg's architecture and commercial (areas) and focus on details found along the way: a painted house wall, colorful articles of daily use, sheep in the pasture. It is the gaze of a visitor, a passer-by, who tries to capture something striking: Vans, shimmering car paint, places of assembly. Stories emerge from the concentration of image details. The different places interact with each other. Impressions and memories become a conglomerate of random samples, a city model (or collage) of layers of urban space and different lifestyles.

Julia Werhahn and Luisa Puschendorf have been working together as an artist duo since 2012. In installative spatial concepts and sculptural interventions, they reflect the relationship between the individual and society in private and public spaces.
Longing, fragility and threat - these are the basic themes of their artistic work. Their art reflects the strategies of how people arrange themselves in and with their lives, how they settle into them. Werhahn & Puschendorf shed light on existential states, moments of being and search for answers.

Werhahn & Puschendorf have developed two serial works for the Unconscious Love Affairs exhibition at the Artists Unlimited Gallery. Everyday objects such as furniture, materials and pictures are found in unusual new contexts and modifications, creating whimsical, humorous and self-explanatory images of life

Bastian Hoffmann
Julia Werhahn
Laura Dechenaud
Lukas Marxt

NOW YOU'RE IN THE MIDDLE
Raum4
Michael Horbach Stiftung
Wormser Str.23
50677 Köln
02.12.18-05.01.19
FINISSAGE: 05.01.19 at 18:30

Öffnungszeiten:
Mi: 15:30-18:30
Fr: 15:30-18:30
So: 11-14

Bauvorhaben unterliegen während der Umsetzung Änderungen, es kommt zu Abweichungen und Variationen auf dem Weg von Idee zum Ist- und Sollzustand. Notwendige Handlungsimpulse und Lösung-versprechende Aktionsbereiche entstehen, Material und Werkzeug werden zu Mitteln der Kommunikation. Die Sehnsucht nach Verwirklichung, der Anreiz durch die Suche nach Perfektion und die provisorischen Lösungsversuche, die von diesem Streben übrig bleiben... In diesem Spannungsfeld entsteht spielerisch ein Regelwerk. Werhahn & Puschendorf nähern sich dem vermeintlichen Ist-Zustand und stellen sich den kollektiv konstruierten Sehnsüchten, die die Welt am laufen halten; eine Befragung des andauernden Prozesses der Konstruktion.

Julia Werhahn und Luisa Puschendorf entwickeln Skulpturen und raumspezifische Installationen. Mit unterschiedlichen Medien suchen sie Formen, die Zustände zwischen Konzentration und Ablenkung beschreiben: Aufenthaltsraumähnliche Szenarien, Videos von abstrakten Stadtfahrten, verformte Objekte und Bilder aus dem Alltag.

Julia Werhahn und Luisa Puschendorf develop a new installation that deals with the ambivalence of public and private spaces. Both artists have been concerned with this topic a for an extended period, and create sensitively, fully composed scenarios, which show different ways in which people arrange their lives, and how they attempt to adapt within it. In their installation Room No. 3, the visitor encounters a sort of futuristic lobby: flooded with light, the sculptures are presented behind glass, and seem to enclose the conserved past and at the same time also a promising future. The room is an exhibition space and a waiting room at once. Whether the art or the viewer is at the center of attention is a question left unanswered.

as part of the exhibition series 3 ½OPENING 02/07/2015 19H