MERZBAU-GARTEN

Merzbau-Garten is a collaborative project which will grow over the course of 2020 in three modules by combining the work, concepts and labor of various Berlin-based artists, writers, and designers. Inspired in part by Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau, the space at Kinderhook & Caracas will organically accumulate architectural interventions, art works and plant life over the course of the year, meanwhile manifesting in a parallel, non-linear publication with contributions from all of the participants. A program of encounters accompanies the physical exhibition. The loose theme of each module is determined through a dialog established between the artists. Module I revolves around the connections between the mythology of the object, artist gardens, house museums, and contamination.

Read publication text by Jesi Khadivi (English or Deutsch)
Read publication text “Spring Cleaning” by Cecilia Valenti (English or Deutsch)

Module I: Andrea Canepa, Valentina Karga, Eli Cortiñas, Paul DD Smith, Kamilla Bischof,
Annika Rixen, Constanza Mendoza, Jesi Khadivi, Santiago da Silva, Nest Design

Module II: Ad Minoliti, Böhler & Orendt, Mirak Jamal, Cecilia Valenti, Sophie Erlund & Stephen Kent

  • Merzbau Garten I, Photo: Joe Clark

  • Merzbau Garten I, Photo: Joe Clark

  • Merzbau Garten I, Photo: Joe Clark

  • Merzbau Garten II, Photo:Joe Clark

  • Merzbau Garten II, Photo: Joe Clark

  • Merzbau Garten II, Photo: Joe Clark

  • Merzbau Garten II, Photo: Joe Clark

  • About my contribution: Tel Brak is the oldest city in the entire world, in ancient Messopotamia, current Syria. The main tell was first excavated in 1937 by Max Mallowan. He discovered the Eye Idol Temple, which was full of small so-called ‘eye idols’. In the majority of cases the Eye-Idols were mixed into the mortar and brickwork filling the temple, so they were part of the temple’s infrastructure, hidden in its architecture, like animistic forces. (Natural ink drawings by Valentina Karga)

  • My work, the railing with the eyes, was inspired by the Eye Idols. I, too, incorporated in this way animistic forces into the Merzbau’s architecture.