Installation of view of Mariana Castillo Deball’s Parergon at Hamburger Bahnhof taken with the Samsung Galaxy Alpha.
In our “Me, Myself and Art” series, in collaboration with Samsung Galaxy Alpha, Sleek takes an immersive approach to the art world. Via the medium of writer and stylist Ella Plevin, and her shiny new Samsung Galaxy Alpha, we bring the art world to you in a uniquely personalised way, utilising performance, selfies and video to present new perspectives on the art scene. Check out #sleekalphaselfie to win a phone for yourself.
Yesterday I visited the Hamburger Bahnhof with Spanish artist Natalia Ibanez Lario. Her work “refers to the human body and the possibility of being modified through various technologies”…the perfect candidate for a #SleekAlphaSelfie.
#SleekAlphaSelfie with Natalia Ibanez Lario taken with the Samsung Galaxy Alpha.
We went to see Mexican artist Mariana Castillo Deball’s solo show “Parergon”. Deball deals with history, assembling facts and fictions along with the objects she scavenges from museums, national archives and collections in order to explore “biographies of things”. The Preis der Nationalgalerie Für Junge Kunst offers the opportunity for a solo show in one of the institution’s museum buildings. After winning the prize in 2013, Castillo Deball has chosen to assemble items associated with the Nationalgalerie’s collection. The hall at Hamburger Bahnhof is framed by printed drapes of the ruined facade of Mshatta palace, originally given to the Kaiser Wilhelm II as a gift from the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1903 and still installed at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum today. An ancient looking figurative sculpture displayed on a plinth made by Castillo Deball is revealed as a more recent piece of Nazi-confiscated “degenerate art” – “Stehendes Mädchen” by Otto Baum – that was discovered in an excavation by Berlin’s Rotes Rathaus in 2010. A discarded wheelchair performs the role of “ghost object” (as Castillo Deball describes her finds), echoing the original wheelchair discarded after its use as a disguise in the theft of Carl Spitzeg’s “Der Arme” Poet in the 1980s.
The bronze cast of Jewish artist Max Liebermann’s death mask produced by Nazi sculptor Arno Breker, displayed on a base produced by Castillo Deball beside two of her paintings. Taken with the Samsung Galaxy Alpha.
Even preceding their installation in Castillo Deball’s exhibition, it’s difficult to categorise some of these pieces as solely artwork or artefact: “Art is art, but in this case, I think history is even more important”. This quote from archaeologist Michael Hoffman, printed in the exhibition publication in relation to Otto Baum’s “Stehende Mädchen”, scores the show. The broadsheet details stories of the objects tumultuous acquisitions, losses and shifts in condition or status over many years and through many hands: carefully researched histories that (although difficult to extract from “cold” viewing alone) offer the inanimate objects a chance for both agency and context within an animate network.
Natalia with several fragments of sculptures belonging to the Deutsches Technikmuseum. Taken with the Samsung Galaxy Alpha.
On the subject of interwoven narratives, I saw the installation that won Mariana Castillo Deball the 2013 Preis Für Junge Kunst shortly before I went on a trip to Mexico City, where the artist was born and where I would meet Natalia Ibanez Lario for the first time. After “Parergon” we wandered through Hamburger Bahnhof’s permanent collection while speaking about Natalia’s recent move to Berlin to continue her work with body modification, lifestyle image dispersal and the embrace of capitalism…
Ella snaps a #SleekAlphaSelfie with a bust. Taken with the Samsung Galaxy Alpha.
Natalia beside Otto Baum’s Stehendes Mädchen and Mariana Castillo Deball’s Mschatta-Fassade. Taken with the Samsung Galaxy Alpha.
Check back tomorrow for more #SleekAlphaSelfies with works by Bernadette Corporation, Christopher Williams and more.
Text von Ella Plevin
“Parergon” by Mariana Castillo Deball is on display at Hamburger Bahnhof until 1 March 2015.
To see more from our Me, Myself and Art series and to enter to win a Samsung Galaxy Alpha of your own, check out our #SleekAlphaSelfie competition
Check out previous entries here on our #SleekAlphaSelfie Tumblr
Another #SleekAlphaSelfie taken with the Samsung Galaxy Alpha.