ACTIVE TERRAIN N°1
Asef–Burckhardt: SHELTER–BONE

event image: Asef–Burckhardt SHELTER–BONE, 2022 – 2025, copyrights: Asef–Burckhardt, VG Bildkunst Bonn

The residential and office buildings of the Sea Ranch in the north of San Francisco are integrated into the rugged cliffs of the Pacific. Strong, salt-soaked winds from the sea, rugged rocks in fine sand, and ancient redwood forests characterise the landscape here. The wooden buildings were largely developed and initiated by the landscape architect Lawrence Halprin and his wife, the choreographer Anna Halprin, in the 1960s in an ecologically avant-garde community of multi-professional collaborators. Since then, the settlement has continued to grow and still sets international standards for the interplay between architecture and nature – in other words, „protection” and „environment“. But what remains of the Halprins’ utopia at the time – „to live lightly on the land“ and the idealism of a sensitive approach to the environment for us today?

SHELTER-BONE, the current project by the artist couple Asef-Burckhardt, is based on extensive periods of research and work in this visionary settlement in Northern California and presents works created on-site and in Berlin. Against the acute backdrop of the global environmental crisis, new anthropological questions such as ‘What must architecture connect today?’ and ‘What must love achieve today?’ are raised and artistically re-explored in close relation to this real topography. Consisting of combined, multimedia works, the project is currently being actively expanded and further developed in order to be shown in changing settings at international exhibition venues. The Kunstverein is very pleased to be able to show this complex of works in Göttingen under the leitmotif: ‘What does shelter mean in our time?

 

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Programme

Sat 11 Jan 2025, 5:00 – 8:00 pm
Vernissage – Reception with
– 5:00 pm: Welcome speeches
≈5:30 pm: Performance by Kirstin Burckhardt

Sat 15 Feb 2025, 3:00 – 7:00 pm
The Long Afternoon of Art with
– 4:00 pm: Curator’s tour of the exhibition with Stephan Klee
– 5:00 pm: Exhibition talk with Asef-Burckhardt and Elena Engelbrechter, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
The duo Asef-Burckhardt and the curator Stephan Klee will be on-site

Sun 23 Feb 2025, 3:00 – 5:00 pm
Finissage
– 3:00 pm: Guided tour of the exhibition with the curator Stephan Klee
– 4:00 pm: Closure

In order to be able to plan better, we would be delighted to receive your reservations for individual programme items at info@kunstvereingoettingen.de or klee@kunstvereingoettingen.de or by telephone at 0551-44899

 

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the Annual Programme 2025
TERRA DIASPORA – ACTIVE TERRAINS

TERRA DIASPORA is the leitmotif of the Kunstverein Göttingen 2024-2025. In view of fundamental upheavals in the coexistence of nature and mankind, TERRA DIASPORA stands for a world on the move; for a terrain that is becoming increasingly alien to its inhabitants, and for an earth on which people are becoming foreign bodies. It is an earth in a foreign land, a terra diaspora.
After the first part of the TERRA DIASPORA – WELTEN WANDELN program series in 2024 explored contemporary forms of fantastic, figurative art, TERRA DIASPORA – ACTIVE TERRAINS is the Kunstverein’s current motto for 2025. As the second part of the comprehensive TERRA DIASPORA exhibition series, the fundamental distortions in the relationship between nature and man in our present day are shown and discussed here using real geographical case studies and the creative reaction of artists to precisely these conditions in Göttingen. This annual program is also developed and supervised by curator Stephan Klee together with the participating artists and related curators.

Kirstin Burckhardt (*Durban, South Africa), is a professional artist and therapist, who uses visual and performative techniques to explore the interactions and emotional bonds between people. Aspects of the body, gesture, touch, communication, and friendship are at the centre of her exploration. Mario Asef (Córdoba, Argentina), an educated artist and architect, focuses his attention and his distinctive expertise in visual and acoustic recording techniques on the complex interactions in the ecological networks of diverse species in wild and urban nature. Together as the Asef-Burkhardt duo, they not only unfold the Sea Ranch on the American West Coast as a multifaceted place of longing for a common artistic quest, but also elevate this specific terrain to their guiding coordinates of a new form of dual action between affection and real urgency. With this lively fusion between artistic field research and a productive network of relationships, the Kunstverein Göttingen is taking the first step into the new exhibition year.

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We thank our sponsors: Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur, Stadt Göttingen, Landschaftsverband Südniedersachsen e.V. and Sparkasse Göttingen