Durchdringen: Das U/unheimliche s/Sehen

A wedge is driven through substance; the uncanny penetrates the psyche, and an artist/curator penetrates an art collection: The Stiftung Kunstforum Berliner Volksbank has invited artist and curator Michael Müller to curate an exhibition of a selection of works from the Kunstsammlung der Berliner Volksbank, to penetrate the inventory with an outsider’s gaze, present it in a new way and respond to it with original artworks. In nine rooms organised loosely and freely around a respective theme, he expands the selection with loans from other artists as well as artworks of his own that enable alternative readings of the pieces from the collection: “The Wound,” “On Spirit Seeing,” “Eye and Mind” or “Flayed Alive.”

The uncanny, fear, and anxiety remain central themes in terms of content and atmosphere in the exhibition Durchdringen: Das U/unheimliche s/Sehen [Inter/Penetration: The Uncanniness of Seeing]. Fear provokes bodily reactions such as a tightening chest, laboured breathing, a weight that seems to press down from above, tunnel vision, and a sudden decrease in possibilities for taking action. A collection defines a curator’s scope of action. Fear deforms bodies as a curator does a collection. The uncanny permeates and transforms the gaze, and the gaze attempts to penetrate the uncanny to comprehend it. The familiar and the commonplace change shape and resurface in the darkness, demanding to be viewed from a new perspective—thus allowing deeper layers of an artwork to be revealed.

The comprehensive exhibition catalogue documents the exhibition in detail, provides insights into the works of art on display and the unusual exhibition architecture, and presents the intellectual background to Michael Müller’s curatorial concept in theoretical, poetic, philosophical and psychoanalytical texts.

With essays by Hubertus von Amelunxen and Gero Heschl, and texts by E. M. Cioran, Sigmund Freud, Heinrich von Kleist, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Henri Michaux, Jean-Luc Nancy and Arthur Schopenhauer
Published by Stiftung KUNSTFORUM der Berliner Volksbank
224 pages, 111 illustrations
German and English

The exhibition catalogue can be ordered here.