10 years ago I was planning Thirsty Garten – the closing exhibition of The Composing Rooms in Berlin before moving to Palma and opening @jelatolove .
Thirsty Garten was a special exhibition as taking influence from the beloved Thirsty Moon – a tea shop specialising in Chinese whole leaf teas – and Teri Garten – a gallery initiated by Paul Sochacki within the shop in Berlin Mitte. Together they created a space for friendship, exchange and community.
In serendipity, The Composing Rooms opened in Berlin in April 2014 with Japanese tea ceremonies hosted by Mai Ueda. Being a space of, in Mai's words, “Internet Reflection” her Tea Ceremony focused on “the real spirit of tea by bringing together worldly life”.
Through the artists and their works, the exhibition reflects on the early dreams for the space, an influence of East on the West and a concept of a sustainable, or highly constructed utopia. A huge garden installation by Michael Pybus from 2014, titled ‘In 3D the basil never wilts’ – a reference to IKEA's increasing use of CGI to save money – served as an environment for hosting tea ceremonies, meditation and a book launch within the exhibition from 26 November 2016 – 21 January 2017.
Artists in the exhibition were: Lou Cantor, Ella Goerner, Yanyan Huang, Martin Kohout, Andrew Munks, Daragh Reeves, Paul Sochacki, Keith Allyn Spencer, Tanaz Modabber, Michael Pybus, Mai Ueda, Abdul Vas, and Rita Vitorelli with Harm van den Dorpel.
I miss curating spaces and bringing people together in them. Anyone want me to curate something for them?
Windoes 19th September – 31 October 2015 at The Composing Rooms, Berlin
Body by Body, Ry David Bradley, Harm van den Dorpel, Yanyan Huang, Steciw/ de Joode, Sofia Leiby, Miltos Manetas, Rita Vitorelli
Looking from outside into an open window one never sees as much as when one looks through a closed window. There is nothing more profound, more mysterious, more pregnant, more insidious, more dazzling than a window lighted by a single laptop. What one can see out in the sunlight is always less interesting than what goes on behind a windowpane. In that black or luminous square life lives, life dreams, life suffers.
Across the ocean of roofs I can see a middle-aged woman, her face already lined, who is forever bending over something and who never goes out. Out of her face, her dress, and her gestures, out of practically nothing at all, I have made up this woman’s story, or rather legend, and sometimes I tell it to myself and weep.
If it had been and old man I could have made up his just as well. And I go to bed proud to have lived and to have suffered in some one besides myself. Perhaps you will say “Are you sure that your story is the real one?” But what does it matter what reality is outside myself, so long as it has helped me to live, to feel that I am, and what I am?
#windoes
In May 2014, in the Dead Sea, I met @priscilla_tea .
I was with a cohort of creatives coodinated by @angeloplessas to stimulate meaningful offline connections in spiritual places.
@miltosmanetas and @togethernesswithuniverse were there too along with many other special people including @angelidakis and @uncle_stephanie .
Over 10 years later, I've worked with Priscilla on several exhibitions, the first being later in 2014 at @composingrooms in Berlin, followed by presentations in the group exhibition 'Three Rooms' with @spiroshadjidjanos and @saraludy in Amsterdam, at @damaproject in Turin, upstairs from The Composing Rooms at Goesthestr. 2 at Neumeister Bar-Am, and more recently online with @thecuratedapp .
I often think of her work when I'm airborne – not only because the meditative quality of her works are transportative and universal, but because the expansiveness she captures from the digital landscapes she paints are closest to the views from an aeroplane window.
Recently, Priscilla has started to paint figuratively, depicting lost digital, perpetually flowing fountains and doves that never land. Priscilla is also one of the handful of artists lucky enough to be exhibited by Gerardo Contreras in the influencial Preteen Gallery in Mexico City in 2013. Gerardo wrote the text for Screen Trauma, Priscilla’s solo exhibition at Neumeister Bar-Am.
I feel incredibly grateful to continue to work with Priscilla, and look forward to upcoming exhibitions ♡
The first image is by Sarah Rosengarten @___garten_____ of Keith J. Varadi reading poetry during Berlin Art Week 2014.
PETRA CORTRIGHT - FLUID KARMA 2024
Petra Cortright’s (USA, 1986) practice stems from creating and manipulating digital files. She first gained attention for webcam self-portraits altered by animated gifs posted to YouTube captioned with spam text. This resulted in VVEBCAM (2007) – now in the collection of MOMA – being removed from YouTube in 2010. Cortright’s digital paintings have earned her the title “Monet of the 21st Century”.
Solo exhibitions include Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara; Société, Berlin; Doota Plaza, Seoul; LIMA, Amsterdam; and the University of Edinburgh. Group exhibitions include Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; MoCA, Los Angeles; KM –Halle für Kunst & Medien, Graz; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Kunsthaus Langenthal, Langenthal; New Museum, New York; and the 12th Biennale de Lyon.
Set in 2024, when society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed, Fluid Karma takes the form of an exhibition staged in a modernist gem in the Hollywood Hills, simulating Richard Kelly’s 2006 film Southland Tales.
The film sets an uncanny picture of now: a dystopian California where the role of media shapes our perceptions, celebrity culture infiltrates the U.S. political system, wars are waged, resources are dwindling, exploitation is rife, Earth itself is destabilised, and escapism is normalised.
In the film, Fluid Karma is both a perpetual energy generator and a drug. Both are created by the German company Treer utilising a compound that encircles the planet like a serpent beneath the Earth’s mantle – discovered off the coast of Israel. The drug – initially trialled on the U.S. military in Iraq – causes psychic ability and telepathy.
The exhibition revels in the coexistence of idealism and dystopianism, utilising modern Hollywood architecture as a scene to place artworks as protagonists to stimulate discourse on the supposed fork in the accelerating conical helix of time.
#petracortright #fluidkarma
CECILIA GRANARA - FLUID KARMA 2024
Cecilia Granara (Saudi Arabia, 1991) works in the expanded field of painting as a ritualistic practice. Her works explore painting as a form to transmit concepts of energy and emotion through technique and symbolic iconography. Many of Granara’s paintings aim to express the most profound sensations of love, leading to her pairing with the Italian artist Carol Rama (1918–2015), known for depicting female sensuality.
Exhibitions include Cassina Projects, Milan; Exo Exo Gallery, Paris; Sapling Gallery, London; MFA Hunter College Galleries, New York; Fondation Ricard, Paris; MAXXI, Milan; and Hua International, Berlin. Granara studied at the Central St. Martin’s School of Art and Design in London and at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and Hunter College, New York.
Set in 2024, when society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed, Fluid Karma takes the form of an exhibition staged in a modernist gem in the Hollywood Hills, simulating Richard Kelly’s 2006 film Southland Tales.
The film sets an uncanny picture of now: a dystopian California where the role of media shapes our perceptions, celebrity culture infiltrates the U.S. political system, wars are waged, resources are dwindling, exploitation is rife, Earth itself is destabilised, and escapism is normalised.
In the film, Fluid Karma is both a perpetual energy generator and a drug. Both are created by the German company Treer utilising a compound that encircles the planet like a serpent beneath the Earth’s mantle – discovered off the coast of Israel. The drug – initially trialled on the U.S. military in Iraq – causes psychic ability and telepathy.
The exhibition revels in the coexistence of idealism and dystopianism, utilising modern Hollywood architecture as a scene to place artworks as protagonists to stimulate discourse on the supposed fork in the accelerating conical helix of time.
#cecilagranara @ceciliagranara
HART LËSHKINA - FLUID KARMA 2024
Hart Lëshkina (est 2014) are a Los Angeles-based interdisciplinary artist duo whose work explores themes surrounding media lives, the construction of identity, power dynamics, and avatars. Their practice traverses the contexts of art, culture, fashion and advertising.
Hart Lëshkina’s work has been commissioned by such publications as The New York Times, New Yorker, The Face, Dazed, A Magazine Curated By and many others. Exhibitions include: The Community Gallery, Paris; Benaki Museum, Athens; K-Gold Gallery, Lesvos; Art4 Gallery, Moscow and Preteen Gallery, Mexico.
Set in 2024, when society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed, Fluid Karma takes the form of an exhibition staged in a modernist gem in the Hollywood Hills, simulating Richard Kelly’s 2006 film Southland Tales.
The film sets an uncanny picture of now: a dystopian California where the role of media shapes our perceptions, celebrity culture infiltrates the U.S. political system, wars are waged, resources are dwindling, exploitation is rife, Earth itself is destabilised, and escapism is normalised.
In the film, Fluid Karma is both a perpetual energy generator and a drug. Both are created by the German company Treer utilising a compound that encircles the planet like a serpent beneath the Earth’s mantle – discovered off the coast of Israel. The drug – initially trialled on the U.S. military in Iraq – causes psychic ability and telepathy.
The exhibition revels in the coexistence of idealism and dystopianism, utilising modern Hollywood architecture as a scene to place artworks as protagonists to stimulate discourse on the supposed fork in the accelerating conical helix of time.
#hartleshkina #composingrooms
ESTRID LUTZ - FLUID KARMA 2024
Galaxy Cluster _ Blurry Visions, 2023
Inkjet prints on photographic paper-lenses UV treated-air injected, honeycomb aluminium, anti-corrosion high temperature resistant, epoxy-resin, glass fibre
40 1/2 x 28 3/8 x 2 3/4 in (103 x 72 x 7 cm)
Estrid Lutz (1989) works with resistant and lightweight materials including aluminium honeycomb, and carbon fibre to create sculptures and wallworks. Conflating the high-tech with images of the natural environment, such as space and coral, Lutz speaks to the Anthropocene, investigating human-technological interactions and the forces of nature.
Solo exhibitions incl. La Citadelle Museum, Villefranche-sur-Mer, FR (2024); CFAlive, Milan; Moco, Montpellier (by Nicolas Bourriaud); Kunstverein Arnsberg; and The Composing Rooms, Berlin. Group exhibitions: Museo Anahuacalli, Mexico City; Paradise Row, London; and MAMO, Cité Radieuse Le Corbusier, Marseille. Lutz has a BA from Beaux-Arts, Paris and MA from Art Center College of Design, LA.
Set in 2024, when society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed, Fluid Karma takes the form of an exhibition staged in a modernist gem in the Hollywood Hills, simulating Richard Kelly’s 2006 film Southland Tales.
The film sets an uncanny picture of now: a dystopian California where the role of media shapes our perceptions, celebrity culture infiltrates the U.S. political system, wars are waged, resources are dwindling, exploitation is rife, Earth itself is destabilised, and escapism is normalised.
In the film, Fluid Karma is both a perpetual energy generator and a drug. Both are created by the German company Treer utilising a compound that encircles the planet like a serpent beneath the Earth’s mantle – discovered off the coast of Israel. The drug – initially trialled on the U.S. military in Iraq – causes psychic ability and telepathy.
The exhibition revels in the coexistence of idealism and dystopianism, utilising modern Hollywood architecture as a scene to place artworks as protagonists to stimulate discourse on the supposed fork in the accelerating conical helix of time.
#estridlutz
R. LORD - FLUID KARMA 2024
Tablet, 2015
Acrylic and graphite on canvas
42 x 60 in (106.7 x 152.4 cm)
R. Lord (USA, 1986) is an artist, free-surfer, and surfboard builder by trade. Her paintings explore conceptual abstraction, figurative history, and contemporary myth-making. She is interested in the intersection of performance and art, be it through her surfing, shaping, or painting.
Solo exhibitions include The Composing Rooms, Berlin; and, Dem Passwords, Los Angeles. Group exhibitions include Rainbow in Spanish, Los Angeles; American Medium, New York; The Hole, New York and New Museum Triennial, New Museum, New York. Lord has a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. R. Lord has collaborated extensively with Ryan Trecartin and has been included in two programmes curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Set in 2024, when society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed, Fluid Karma takes the form of an exhibition staged in a modernist gem in the Hollywood Hills, simulating Richard Kelly’s 2006 film Southland Tales.
The film sets an uncanny picture of now: a dystopian California where the role of media shapes our perceptions, celebrity culture infiltrates the U.S. political system, wars are waged, resources are dwindling, exploitation is rife, Earth itself is destabilised, and escapism is normalised.
In the film, Fluid Karma is both a perpetual energy generator and a drug. Both are created by the German company Treer utilising a compound that encircles the planet like a serpent beneath the Earth’s mantle – discovered off the coast of Israel. The drug – initially trialled on the U.S. military in Iraq – causes psychic ability and telepathy.
The exhibition revels in the coexistence of idealism and dystopianism, utilising modern Hollywood architecture as a scene to place artworks as protagonists to stimulate discourse on the supposed fork in the accelerating conical helix of time.
#rlord #composingrooms
GABRIEL MESTRE ARRIOJA - FLUID KARMA 2024
Reaching the energy hole above the head, 2024
Rice paper cut-out
63 x 44 in (160 x 111.8 cm)
Edition of 3 + 2AP
Gabriel Mestre Arrioja (México, 1974) is a self-taught artist and independent curator who has focused his projects on the critical exploration of the relationships between locality and globality. Mestre collaborates with composers and choreographers to incorporate dance and music to activate his installations, investigating the temporality of his geo-anthro-techno-pological objects.
Since 2002, Mestre has presented his work in museums and institutions in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, the Baltic States, Russia, Poland, Germany, the UK, Canada and Japan. Recent exhibitions include Espacio México, Montreal; Museo Morelense de Arte Contemporáneo Juan Soriano, Cuernavaca, México.; and at Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich. Among others, Mestre has been a guest lecturer at the Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland and a guest lecturer at the Tromsø Art Academy, Norway.
Set in 2024, when society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed, Fluid Karma takes the form of an exhibition staged in a modernist gem in the Hollywood Hills, simulating Richard Kelly’s 2006 film Southland Tales.
The film sets an uncanny picture of now: a dystopian California where the role of media shapes our perceptions, celebrity culture infiltrates the U.S. political system, wars are waged, resources are dwindling, exploitation is rife, Earth itself is destabilised, and escapism is normalised.
In the film, Fluid Karma is both a perpetual energy generator and a drug. Both are created by the German company Treer utilising a compound that encircles the planet like a serpent beneath the Earth’s mantle – discovered off the coast of Israel. The drug – initially trialled on the U.S. military in Iraq – causes psychic ability and telepathy.
The exhibition revels in the coexistence of idealism and dystopianism, utilising modern Hollywood architecture as a scene to place artworks as protagonists to stimulate discourse on the supposed fork in the accelerating conical helix of time.
ANDREW NORMAN WILSON - FLUID KARMA 2024
In the Air Tonight, 2020
HD Video
Duration: 11:10 (or 17:06 with entire musical outro), DCP / Apple ProRes 422 HQ with stereo sound, 4:3 aspect ratio
Edition of 5
Andrew Norman Wilson (USA, 1983) works predominantly in moving image, creating short-form narrative cinema that investigates and critiques the aesthetics and inequalities of the corporate world and the myths of technology. His work, Workers Leaving the Googleplex (2011), drew parallels to Lumière’s 1895 documentation of Workers Leaving the Factory.
Exhibitions include at MoMA PS1, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; CCS Bard, The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Fluxia, Milan; and Yvon Lambert, Paris. Wilson has lectured at Oxford University, Harvard University, Universität der Künste Berlin, and CalArts and received an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Set in 2024, when society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed, Fluid Karma takes the form of an exhibition staged in a modernist gem in the Hollywood Hills, simulating Richard Kelly’s 2006 film Southland Tales.
The film sets an uncanny picture of now: a dystopian California where the role of media shapes our perceptions, celebrity culture infiltrates the U.S. political system, wars are waged, resources are dwindling, exploitation is rife, Earth itself is destabilised, and escapism is normalised.
In the film, Fluid Karma is both a perpetual energy generator and a drug. Both are created by the German company Treer utilising a compound that encircles the planet like a serpent beneath the Earth’s mantle – discovered off the coast of Israel. The drug – initially trialled on the U.S. military in Iraq – causes psychic ability and telepathy.
The exhibition revels in the coexistence of idealism and dystopianism, utilising modern Hollywood architecture as a scene to place artworks as protagonists to stimulate discourse on the supposed fork in the accelerating conical helix of time.
BRYAN MORELLO - FLUID KARMA 2024
Bryan Morello (USA, 1988) is a multidisciplinary artist who experiments with performance and various modes of documentation and display to explore relationships between bodies, systems, and the framing of time. Emergent from an ongoing series, his works on paper catalogue their own encounters with his ever-changing inventory of mark-making behaviours in which impulsive movements and motions meet their materials to trace questions of time, memory, and language.
Solo exhibitions include Gern en Regalia, New York, Neumeister Bar-Am, Berlin; Bad Reputation, Los Angeles; Mission Comics, San Francisco; Rodi Gallery, New York; and Important Projects, Oakland. Group exhibitions include at Mortadelle, Arles; Kodomo, New York; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Museum, San Francisco; Interstate Projects, Brooklyn and Yoga Center, Goteborg. Morello has a BFA from California College of the Arts and is completing an MFA in the Art and Technology program at CalArts, Valencia.
Set in 2024, when society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed, Fluid Karma takes the form of an exhibition staged in a modernist gem in the Hollywood Hills, simulating Richard Kelly’s 2006 film Southland Tales.
The film sets an uncanny picture of now: a dystopian California where the role of media shapes our perceptions, celebrity culture infiltrates the U.S. political system, wars are waged, resources are dwindling, exploitation is rife, Earth itself is destabilised, and escapism is normalised.
In the film, Fluid Karma is both a perpetual energy generator and a drug. Both are created by the German company Treer utilising a compound that encircles the planet like a serpent beneath the Earth’s mantle – discovered off the coast of Israel. The drug – initially trialled on the U.S. military in Iraq – causes psychic ability and telepathy.
The exhibition revels in the coexistence of idealism and dystopianism, utilising modern Hollywood architecture as a scene to place artworks as protagonists to stimulate discourse on the supposed fork in the accelerating conical helix of time.
VICTOR NWANKWO - FLUID KARMA 2024
Orgone Box Prototype, 2024
Metal and glass box, marble, metal insulation, wood, audiovisual material, Raspberry Pi
11 3/4 x 11 3/4 x 11 3/4 in (30 x 30 x 30 cm)
Victor Nwankwo MD (USA, 1983) is an artist, doctor and data scientist focused on voice and dialogue through the revisiting of anachronistic media and technology. Nwankwo works across moving image, sculpture, and code, to create immersive experiences that employ sampling, remixing and reappropriating to better speak to the deep mind.
Exhibitions and projects include Shoreditch Arts Club, London; ‘Spirit House’, New York; 207 Front Street, New York; and Harold Arts, Chicago. Nwankwo has collaborated on code and artwork with the Twilite Tone & Gorillaz, Nicholas Jaar, Chuck English, and Naum House. He is working on upcoming projects with Flosstradamus and LD Deutsch.
Set in 2024, when society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growing wealth inequality, and corporate greed, Fluid Karma takes the form of an exhibition staged in a modernist gem in the Hollywood Hills, simulating Richard Kelly’s 2006 film Southland Tales.
The film sets an uncanny picture of now: a dystopian California where the role of media shapes our perceptions, celebrity culture infiltrates the U.S. political system, wars are waged, resources are dwindling, exploitation is rife, Earth itself is destabilised, and escapism is normalised.
In the film, Fluid Karma is both a perpetual energy generator and a drug. Both are created by the German company Treer utilising a compound that encircles the planet like a serpent beneath the Earth’s mantle – discovered off the coast of Israel. The drug – initially trialled on the U.S. military in Iraq – causes psychic ability and telepathy.
The exhibition revels in the coexistence of idealism and dystopianism, utilising modern Hollywood architecture as a scene to place artworks as protagonists to stimulate discourse on the supposed fork in the accelerating conical helix of time. #victornwankwo
