Congratulations to Michela de Mattei on her latest commission Acquavideo on view at MAAT museum, Lisbon from 18. March until 6. September on the occasion of the upcoming exhibition Aquaria curated by Angela Rui.





Acquavideo, 2020
two-channel video installation (10'16”), 4.1 audio system.
courtesy of the artist and Belmacz
 

The video-installation takes as a starting point a water leakage that occurred at the Dubai Aquarium inside the Dubai Mall in 2010. Juxtaposing the Internet footage of the recordings of the incident with the artist’s recent first hand recordings inside the Dubai Aquarium, the video wants to question the idea of aquarium both as a window into an underwater world, a display of marvels, as well as an artificial and problematic reproduction holding wonder and anxiety tightly together.
 
Projected into two separate screens Acquavideo links visually and conceptually the fish tank and the Dubai Mall as enclosed spaces of desire, imagination, power and control. The first section of the video suggests captivity, playing with excessive points of views; glimpses and gazes of this extreme visibility. The editing of the moving images creates constricted architectural partitions, planes and perspectives. The shops in the Mall reflects their logos and lights onto the glass panels of the fish tanks creating a visual intoxication of these two enclosed spaces. This excessive tension escalates into a short circuit, a figurative and symbolic crack into the system that make the second part of the video collapse into a nocturnal dimension. Darkness envelops what is visible and the viewer slips into an immersive acoustic space, sliding into a submerged world that is both hypnotic and fictional, realistic and surreal. The soundscape registers this shift, from a sound pollution to an absorbing acoustic atmosphere. 
 
The video installation hold together, reverses and mirrors these perspectives. The two screens interplay these dimensions like communicating vessels. Both a visual and symbolic outflow, Aquavideo is an intimate journey into subliminal desires, pressures and mesmerising visions. Ultimately, the work reflects on the relationship between consumerism and wonder using the affinities of fish tanks or the aquarium to windows displays, as both are carefully designed to allow viewers (or consumers) to imagine, escape and disengage from their own everyday reality. 

Jakob Lena Knebl & Palais de Tokyo


Belmacz is delighted for Jakob Lena Knebl's and Ashley Hans Scheirl's invitation to Palais de Tokyo where the duo will stage their exhibition in October 2023 curated by Daria de Beauvais.


Enjoy Jakob's playlist put together for Belmacz to welcome Spring.

listen here

23. January – 18. April 2021

A group exhibition including work by Gernot Wieland at Kunstmuseum Olten, Switzerland.

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12. December 2020 – 05. April 2021


Installation view of the artist's current exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz with Ashley Hans Scheirl. The show is re-opening this month. 


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18. March - 6. September 2021


A group exhibition with a new film commission by Michela de Mattei, curated by Angela Rui a MAAT Museum, Lisbon.



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11. März - 18. April 2021

As part of this years Videonale exhibition the artist Gernot Wieland will be showing his film 'Ink in Milk' with Kunstmuseum Bonn.

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The quarterly photography publication featured Hanna Mattes’ work with an interview in their current issue.

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Abbas Zahedi is taking part in todays virtual reading group as part of Richard Saltoun’s 12-month exhibition programme ‘On Hannah Arendt’ dedicated to the writings of the political philosopher in partnership with the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities.

register here