06/08/2022, 4:00 pm,

When it moves, strengthening its skin

, Dortmunder Kunstverein

How does specific spaces shape the way we relate to each other? When it moves, strengthening its skin is a program of performances and installations that takes place over two consecutive Saturdays in the surroundings of two exhibition institutions in North Rhine-Westphalia: in the garden of the Kunstverein Bielefeld and the public Bunnemannplatz as well as a multistory parking garage located in the immediate vicinity of the Dortmunder Kunstverein. Both programs are under one title. They share a careful attention to the way we inhabit spaces in the context of their respective symbolic and visual particularities and explore the conditions of communal experience. When it moves, strengthening its skin brings together diverse contributions by international artists such as Elisa Barrera, Bitsy Knox, Nils Amadeus Lange, Mira Mann, Sveta Mordovskaya, PRICE, Margaux Schwarz and Noemi Weber, who explore the links between relationships and interactions in movement and spatial appropriation.

The opening event will take place on 30 July 2022 in the garden of the Kunstverein Bielefeld. One week later, on August 6, When it moves, strengthening its skin will take place at the Dortmunder Kunstverein. Starting at 4 pm, the neighboring parking garage and the plateau above it on Emil-Moog Platz will be reinterpreted as a meeting place for artistic interventions. The multi-storey car park is a functional space, a subterranean in-between place in the sense of a station of change, passage or transit, which is transferred from its dormant and mobility-reassuring state into a mood defined by human relationships, attraction and imagination. Thus, Noemi Weber's performances with Milena Weber and Karina Villafan, as well as Margaux Schwarz, deal with the status of bodily relations and relationships negotiated in a place oriented solely towards vehicles and utility. Noemi Weber's choreography from 4 p.m. onwards explores the closeness and distance between mother and infant, which has no representative forms in the public sphere. In Margaux Schwarz's performative sound piece at 7 pm, on the other hand, two cars are placed as if they were in a confessional. PRICE performs theatrical narratives of pop culture using cinematic scenes and song verses in the script of a past performance. But it is not only performative practices that allow the appropriation of semi-public spaces. While Elisa Barrera's sculptural and painterly works question the possibilities of fiction and blending in urban utility spaces as much as they test the potential of appropriation, Sveta Mordovskaya's installation tests the associative effect of straw. What effect is created by this simple and agrarian material in a modern urban concrete landscape, how do we approach such an installative staging?

Visitors are invited to perceive the artists' contributions, some of which were developed especially for the two venues, outside of a conventional exhibition context and to question them about their effect and meaning in an environment that is often architecturally and spatially unfamiliar to art.

When it moves, strengthening its skin takes place at the invitation of Paolo Baggi and Florentine Muhry.

Elisa Barrera lives in Hamburg and is an artist and co-founder of the art space Come Over Chez Malik's (Hamburg, 2014). In 2021 she was awarded the Arbeitsstipendium für bildende Kunst der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg. She recently participated in exhibitions at Lucas Hirsch (Düsseldorf, 2021), Lateral Roma (Rome, 2021) or Peach (Rotterdam, 2021).

Sveta Mordovskaya lives in Zürich and studied with Heimo Zobernig at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Solo exhibitions have been held at Kunstverein Kevin Space, Vienna (2022), Weiss Falk, Basel, Cherish, Geneva (both 2020).

PRICE's work lives in Zurich and is characterized by elaborate soundscapes, costumes and stage designs, often created in collaborative constellations. Performances include, Swiss Dance Days 2019, Kunsthalle Basel, Stadtgalerie Bern, Arsenic - Contemporary Performing Arts Center Lausanne and Le Bourg, Les Urbaines Festival Lausanne; Galpao Bela Maré Rio de Janeiro, Centre for Contemporary Art and KEM Warsaw; Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris, Beursschouwburg, Performatik Festival, Brussels, Burgtheater Kasino within ImPulsTanz Festival, Vienna, Human Resources Los Angeles, Galleria Fonti Napoli, Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection Paris.

Margaux Schwarz lives in Brussels and is a French artist and researcher. Her work takes many forms, such as conversational performances, sound pieces, short stories, scripts, or events. Her doctoral research (UHasselt / PXL-MAD School of Arts) is informed by fields such as digital anthropology or sociology of work. It explores power structures in language and communication, with a specific focus on performative strategies used in socio-professional interactions.

Noemi Weber lives in Düsseldorf and re-orients the historically conventional contextualisation of gestural painting and its determination by revealing and elaborating its formal entanglements with ornamentation and dance. Recent exhibitions include Kunsthalle Bremen, 2022, Mouches Volantes, Cologne 2021 with Milena Weber; Simultanhalle / PiK, Cologne 2018; Tyson Galerie, Cologne 2018.