BREATHING EXERCISES
September 30th - October 16th, 2022nyg|west Leipzig
An exhibition with works by Gevi Dimitrakopoulou, Forensic Architecture, Maria F Dolores (member of AMOQA Athens Museum of Queer Arts), Sofia Rozaki
Curated by Eleni Michaelidi & Sophie Constanze Polheim
Breathing Exercises brings together four artistic responses to the brutal killing of queer activist Zak Kostopoulos/ZackieOh! on September 21st 2018 in downtown Athens. A brutal hate crime by male civilians and police in plain sight and broad daylight, followed by discriminating media coverage, an attempted state cover up, and the all too familiar police impunity - Zak’s life was treated throughout as a life not worth living. In the words of one of his friends, “(...) they read him as a body that has no value.”1
Can artworks reclaim a life’s relevance, when it is itself deprived of any value? Breathing Exercises forges aesthetic and social alliances that expose and look critically at systemic violence. The artistic and investigative positions presented in the exhibition offer textured, multilayered accounts of violence and loss. They correlate the process of mourning with its dominant causes and articulations, and partake in a mourning, language and knowledge production process that is as affective and vulnerable as it is militant and empowering. In transcending the purely symbolic realm, they resist dominant narratives to restitute “a body that matters.”2
Growing from collaboration, community ties and interpersonal networks, these “breathing exercises” resist notions of artistic production as an individualist practice and shift away from a single perspective towards a shared one. And, maybe, they give some form to aspirational hopes for a better life. Following Sara Ahmed’s syllogism, “Maybe the point is that it is hard to struggle without aspirations, and aspirations are hard to have without giving them some form. We could remember that the Latin root of the word aspiration means “to breathe.” I think the struggle for a bearable life is the struggle for queers to have space to breathe. (…)”3
1 Quoted in the video work of Gevi Dimitrakopoulou, This Right; Zak, Life and After, 2020, accessible online at: https://vimeo.com/476953966.
2 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex, New York: Routledge, 1995.
3 Sara Ahmed, The Promise of Happiness, Duke University Press: Durham and London, 2010, 210.
BREATHING EXERCISES
Gevi Dimitrakopoulou, Forensic Architecture, Maria F Dolores (member of AMOQA Athens Museum of Queer Arts), Sofia Rozaki
30.09.-16.10.2022
Curated in collaboration w/ Eleni Michaelidi
Installation views by Walther Le Kon
Supported by KDFS, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Neustart Kultur
more information here
Curated in collaboration w/ Eleni Michaelidi
Installation views by Walther Le Kon
Supported by KDFS, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Neustart Kultur
more information here
(UN)STABLE CONNECTIONS
Ana Castillo, Neckar Doll, EAZY, Giek_1, Itchi, Kötta, Fabian Lehmann, Sina Link, DJ Opti, Sophie Constanze Polheim, Puffybar, Henrik Rohde, Anica Seidel, Vitalii Shupliak, Variante A, Warscenes
(UN)STABLE CONNECTIONS
Ana Castillo, Neckar Doll, EAZY, Giek_1, Itchi, Kötta, Fabian Lehmann, Sina Link, DJ Opti, Sophie Constanze Polheim, Puffybar, Henrik Rohde, Anica Seidel, Vitalii Shupliak, Variante A, Warscenes
Curated by the nyg|west / Lindenow Team @Westbahnhof Leipzig
30.09.-02.10.2022
Photos: Walther Le Kon
Supported by Stiftung Kunstfonds, Neustart Kultur, Kulturamt der Stadt Leipzig, KDFS
Mi Ruina Es Su Ruina
Clara Winter & Miiel Ferráez
06.05.-18.05.2022
Installation views by Walther Le Kon
Supported by KDFS, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Neustart Kultur
more information here
Installation views by Walther Le Kon
Supported by KDFS, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Neustart Kultur
more information here
FORNEVER
Anna Raczyńska
10.06.-22.06.2022
Installation views by Felix Brenner
Supported by KDFS, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Neustart Kultur
more information here
Installation views by Felix Brenner
Supported by KDFS, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Neustart Kultur
more information here
Taste of Sins
Diane Haefner, Inside Job (Ula Lucińska + Michal Knychaus), Jakob Limmer, Hannes Uhlenhaut
18.02.-02.03.2022
Curated in collaboration w/ Letje Rügge
Installation views by Walther Le Kon
Supported by KDFS, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Neustart Kultur, Studentenwerk Leipzig
more information here
Curated in collaboration w/ Letje Rügge
Installation views by Walther Le Kon
Supported by KDFS, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Neustart Kultur, Studentenwerk Leipzig
more information here
Are We Not Plunging Continually?
Eva Andronikidou, Eva Angelaka, Ronny Aviram, Lennard Bernd Becker, Katerina Chatzikosti, Nasia Drimousi, FELL, Christos Fousekis, Evgenia Fragkolia, Leon Galli, Julia Gerke, Lara Hampe, Julie Hart, Yannick Harter, Lisa Kirchhoff, Franziska Koch, Koa Koppenhöfer, Philine Kuhn & Jonathan McNaughton, Fabian Lehmann, Tianxu Liu, Triantafyllia Ntouroupi, Snow Paik, Sophie Constanze Polheim, Kay Lotte Pommer, Lucie Reichmayr, Natalia Sopidi, Phil Stahlhut, Neam Tarek, Apostolos Tsorfolias, Despoina Vaxevanidi, Victoria Welsh, Fiete Worreschk, Maria Zervoudaki & Magdalena Zotou
01.10.-03.10.2021
Installation views by Koa Koppenhöfer
Supported by p o s t documenta - contemporary arts as territorial agencies
more information here
Installation views by Koa Koppenhöfer
Supported by p o s t documenta - contemporary arts as territorial agencies
more information here
AND NOW
Nicolás Astorga, Postorganic Bauplan, Dolphins, Elle Fierce [they/them], Anaïs Goupy, Corrina Goutos, Heath Karing, Lena Kemmler, Sophie Constanze Polheim, Merlin Reichart, Jenny Schäfer
AND NOW
Nicolás Astorga, Postorganic Bauplan, Dolphins, Elle Fierce [they/them], Anaïs Goupy, Corrina Goutos, Heath Karing, Lena Kemmler, Sophie Constanze Polheim, Merlin Reichart, Jenny Schäfer
Curated by the nyg|west / Lindenow Team @UG Halle14, Spinnerei Leipzig
01.10.-10.10.2020
Photos: Walther Le Kon
Supported by Stiftung Kunstfonds, Neustart Kultur, Kulturamt der Stadt Leipzig
‘Merica
Walther Le Kon
26.06.-04.07.2021
Photos: Walther Le Kon
Satellite at f/stop Festival für Fotografie Leipzig
more information here
Photos: Walther Le Kon
Satellite at f/stop Festival für Fotografie Leipzig
more information here
REALITY ZINE
Kinnat Soley, Sophie C. Polheim
02.10.-04.10.2020
(magazine release)
Photos by Walther Le Kon
(magazine release)
Photos by Walther Le Kon
I DON’T WANT IT IN MY BODY
Barbara Lüdde & Corrina Goutos
Losing World.
Constanze Kresta
01.11.-14.11.2019
Photos: Constanze Kresta
Photos: Constanze Kresta
Supported by KDFS
Ein kleines Delta läuft man, glaube ich
Künstler*innen des BLECH Raum für Kunst Halle e.V.
04.10.-20.11.2019
Installation views by Walther Le Kon
Installation views by Walther Le Kon
Baby Faust
Clara Hausmann & Lissy Willberg
17.07.-31.07.2019
Photos: Courtesy of the Artists
Supported by Stura HGB Leipzig
Photos: Courtesy of the Artists
Supported by Stura HGB Leipzig
World can only be saved by horses
Jenny Schäfer
12.04.-11.05.2019
Photos: Jenny Schäfer
Photos: Jenny Schäfer
