Exhibition opening:
January 18, 2018
Exhibition dates:
January 18 – February 11, 2018
Special installation performance for the duration of the opening
image:
Play Motel, 2017
The artistic practice of Tracey Snelling is based on a profound interest in sociological, psychological and geographical occurrences. For her show First We Take Manhattan, a reference to the song by Leonard Cohen, various forms of her signature small-scaled room and house sculptures will be displayed, but at the exhibition’s centre are two life-sized spatial installations.
Influenced by her surroundings, the vibrant and obscure areas of Berlin, it’s diverse urbanity, culture and clubbing scene, Snelling merges different absorbed impressions with peculiarities of the digital world, popular culture, news or politics, creating mundane and odd spaces. For the opening, performers will bring her installations to life by acting out tasks ranging from familiar to bizarre – a three-hour performance, filmed and later displayed on the rooms’ television sets, inviting anyone to watch, re-enact or interact with the environments. Presenting small-scaled sculptures parallel to the immersive life-sized installations and involving the visitors, Snelling asks universal questions about reality, life and their existential dimensions – we as human individuals are the centres of our own cosmos, but in relation to the infinite extent of the universe itself, we are only a small fraction of its entirety.
Tracey Snelling, of Oakland, California, lives and works in Berlin and Oakland. She studied art at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque and exhibited in international institutions, including the The Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Belgium; Palazzo Reale, Milan; Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Germany; and the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco. In early 2017, Snelling was awarded a fellowship at the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan. In 2015 she received the Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors Grant, and has new permanent sculptural commissions at the Historisches Museum, Frankfurt and Facebook offices in California. She is currently a guest at Künstlerhaus Bethanien with the kind support of Jules Maeght Gallery, San Francisco, Pan American Art Projects, Miami, and 21c Museum Hotels.
Exhibition catalogue release on March 1, 2018, with text by Christoph Tannert and Natasha Boas.
There is an excerpt from the film, A Moving Picture, directed by Jurgen Lutz, on YouTube (link below). which features an early version of First We Take Manhattan by Leonard Cohen. A Moving Picture is described as a "romantic dance fantasy" based on the choreography of Anne Ditchburn. Leonard Cohen plays plays himself.
There is an excerpt from the film, A Moving Picture, directed by Jurgen Lutz, on YouTube (link below). which features an early version of First We Take Manhattan by Leonard Cohen. A Moving Picture is described as a "romantic dance fantasy" based on the choreography of Anne Ditchburn. Leonard Cohen plays plays himself.
Viewfinder links:
Net links:
YouTube links:
Leonard Cohen - First We Take Manhattan
Jurgen Lutz ~ A Moving Picture (The Sexier First We Take Manhattan) 
