Graham
Lister
 

Barrier - Breakdown - Repeat

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Barrier - Breakdown - Repeat was an exhibition of new, site-specific work. Commissioned as part of 2018 - 2019 Exhibition cycle (Transfer) at the WerkStadt Kulturverein Berlin - 28th September - 3rd November 2019

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WerkStadt Kulturverein Berlin website:

'The word transfer comes from the Latin root transferre - to carry. With this keyword we intend to reference and debate a wide, but clearly defined, range of topics with exhibitions starting in the summer of 2018 until the end of 2019.
We understand transfer as translations, conversions, and movements that transcend a tangible or abstract boundary. There is no such thing as a transfer which can create or hold up a neutral equilibrium. Rather, every transfer comes with tension, change, and transformation.
For this exhibition series we want to discuss and open up our space to different perspectives on the structuring of our society. At the same time, we want to analyze transfer as a genuine aesthetic element - hand in hand with a multifaceted, critical, and inventive understanding.'

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Curated by Jason Benedict & Jule Böttner, the solo exhibition 'Barrier - Breakdown - Repeat' was a development of ongoing research into the form and function of barrier materials. Created and shown to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, B-B-R used the idea of rapidly deployed barrier materials as the starting point for the generation and production of visual outcomes. From chain link fences, to temporary barrier materials, to expanding metal fence lines, all ready to be rolled out and rapidly erected, B-B-R, focused on these source materials, and then referred to them in various ways to foreground varying relationships individuals have with barriers - physically, conceptually and historically. In essence, ideas of the disruption of space, of the structures which support barriers being built and the focusing in on the repeated aesthetic of meshes were key within the development of this work.

In an era of ever-increasing commentaries and discussions about barriers and boundaries, B-B-R sought to constrict movement within the gallery space using expanded field works to encroach on optimum viewing positions for wall-mounted painted pieces. It equally endeavoured to draw attention onto the structures which we expect to be constant within exhibition spaces by removing the canvas stretchers, in the vein of previous works by painters Angela de la Cruz and Sam Gilliam. Part of the underlying aim of this exhibition of practice-based research was to push attention toward particular aesthetic and structural elements of the everyday which so often go unnoticed, and equally so often creep into the ways in which we operate within 'free' physical spaces.