curated by Jannis Varelas Event

Jannis Varelas
Curator

Artists
Vito Acconci, Stephen Aldahl, Atelier Van Lieshout, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Mario Ayala, John Bock, Monica Bonvicini, Chris Burden, Charles Burns, Hugo Canoilas, Robert Crumb, Björn Dahlem, Alex Eagleton, Herbert Fritsch, Tasos Gkaintatzis, Franz Graf, Martin Grandits, Apostolos Georgiou, Max Hooper Schneider, Vassilis H., Rachel Harrison, Brigitte Kowanz, Dionisis Kavallieratos, Kalup Linzy, Paul McCarthy & Mike Kelley, Calvin Marcus, Ben Noam, Meret Oppenheim, Jon Rafman, Jessi Reaves, Eva Schlegel, Jim Shaw, Andreas Slominski, Daniel Spoerri, Iiu Susiraja, Toshio Saeki, Paul Thek, Karl Wirsum, Chloe Wise, Thomas Zipp

On the level or the man who fell out of bed

This exhibition will be about perception, transformation and misunderstandings. I believe these are core elements of this year’s topic of curated by, Comedy. On the level or the man who fell out of bed, deals with the reverse comprehension of language as a process that starts with knowing the sounds and images of words but not being able to understand their meaning, a bit like me and German language. This would be an ideal situation as Roland Barthes pouts it in his Éléments de sémiologie, a way to enter the magical world of the incomprehensible, like seeing something for the first time. In this context and from a certain point of view, everything can be perceived as elusive as possible and all things possibly can become projections of one self: the carnivalesque essence of life in all its glory, humankind at will. On the other hand and learning from the Ovidian concept of metamorphoses, one could argue that what we see as what it is, is what it has become, a transformation that gives form and meaning to what is there according to its past. In other words, the tragicomedy of life and the hilarious drama of the misunderstanding of what one should do in order to achieve what he wants.