Marjetica Potrč: The Sami, Along with Their Ashaninka Friends, Contemplate Coexistance with the Earth (2016), © the artist and Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin/Stockholm. Aimée Zito Lema: video still from Rond de Jambe (2016).
Welcome to the opening of On Coexistence by Marjetica Potrč and A Series of Gestures by Aimée Zito Lema, Thursday, April 6, 6pm.
Free entrance.
The exhibitions continue until May 21.
6.30pm Welcome by Ida Marie Bransfjell, leader of Tråante 2017, and Helena Holmberg, director Kunsthall Trondheim, followed by short introductions to the exhibitions by the artists Marjetica Potrč and Aimée Zito Lema.
We are proud to present two new solo exhibitions at Kunsthall Trondheim:
The exhibition On Coexistence builds on the research and projects that the Slovenian artist Marjetica Potrč has carried out, in Acre, Amazonas, and in many different parts of the world, always with a focus on community, sustainability and building new knowledge on traditional grounds. In On Coexistence the focal point lies on indigenous knowledge. Coexisting with nature is for the indigenous peoples nothing new – it’s the foundation of their cultures. Potrč argues that the standpoints of these small-scale communities could leave important contributions to todays’ discussion on climate issues. The large wall drawings can be read as narratives or thought maps, visual conclusions from her research. In connection to the exhibition, architecture students from NTNU, together with architect Trygve Ohren, will construct a social space in the gallery room using the exhibition and Potrč’s thoughts on architecture as weaving as a starting point. An international seminar Indigenous knowledge – the practice of sustainable existence will be held on May 5 – 6.
The exhibition A Series of Gestures of the Dutch and Argentinian artist Aimée Zito Lema consists of three works that relate to ways the body engages with politics. The 3 channel video work Rond De Jambe (2015-2016) juxtaposes the movements of the ‘political body’ with the movements of the ‘dancing body’. For Kunsthall Trondheim the work Several Forms of Friendship takes place as a series of workshops where the public is invited to cast parts of the body, in particular joints, that enable movement. The casts will be shown in the exhibition as a continually growing documentation of the workshops. The third work A Series of Gestures consists of a series of prints from the archive of Adresseavisen, the local newspaper. Details of gestures from press images taken in connection with house fires in Trondheim, are cut out, enlarged and hung on the walls of the space where the workshop Several Forms of Friendship is held. With these three works the exhibition points toward how the body relates to power structures within a bio-political frame work.
Marjetica Potrč (b. 1953 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, lives and works in Berlin) has been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and the Americas, including in such major exhibitions as the Venice Biennial (1993, 2003, 2009) and the São Paulo Biennial (1996, 2006), and at major institutions such as Guggenheim Museum in New York (2001) and the Portikus Gallery in Frankfurt am Main (2006). Potrč is Professor of Social Design at Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg. She has previously taught at the Städelschule Art Academy in Frankfurt am Main and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (among others).
Aimée Zito Lema (born 1982, from Netherlands and Argentina) studied at the University of the Arts, Buenos Aires,the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, and followed the Master Artistic Research program of the Royal Academy in The Hague. Among her recent exhibitions are: 11th Gwangju Biennale, the Dorothea von Stetten Award exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bonn (2016) and L’art de la Revolte – Hors Pistes – Centre Pompidou Paris (2016). Zito Lema recently finished the Artist-in-residency program at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.