NOWs: Agentur des Exponenten by Andreas Greiner

NOWs:

Agentur des Exponenten

GASAG Art Prize 2016

Andreas Greiner has been awarded the GASAG Kunstpreis for 2016. The artist has created an exhibition entitled Agentur des Exponenten (Agency of the Exponent) for the first big hall in the Berlinische Galerie. Its themes are the exponential growth, identity and transformation of living creatures, including such very different beings as microorganisms and chickens bred for fattening. With them, he describes the relationship of people in the media and consumer society to art and to themselves.

For his show at the Berlinische Galerie, Greiner has devised a three-part installation linking the various thematic strands in his work. At the centre is the skeleton of a broiler, a monumental celebration of the species made with a 3D printer. The sculpture Monument for 308 (2016) resembles the reconstruction of a winged dinosaur about to leap into the air or take flight. In his Study (Portrait) of the Singularity of the Animal, the second part of the exhibition, the artist considers creatures which are not normally perceived as individuals, such as algae, portrayed here singly with the aid of a scanning electron microscope. In the third section, Greiner combines a self-actuating grand piano (Disklavier) with film shots of the rhythmically throbbing skin of “firefly squids” (Watasenia scintillans). The videos were given as visual scores to composers (Páll Ragnar Pálsson, Therese Strasser, Tyler Friedman), who then derived musical interpretations for the Disklavier.

Opening of the exhibition on September 14 in the context of Berlin Art Week 2016. In 2016 the art prize initiated by GASAG will be awarded for the fourth time in partnership with the Berlinische Galerie.

The catalogue accompanies the exhibition and examines the individual detached from the masses based on exponential growth. With contributions by Guido Faßbender, Thomas Köhler, Kim Mildebrath and Erich Pucher.