Opening Friday, 14 February, 6-9 pm.
Ordinarily, ‘caps’ conjures an artificial upper ceiling—concealing for protection (to keep control) or ornament (to brag). In ‘caps,’ Jan Kunkel snaps that cap, substituting historical tracers for new masters at a moment when anti-fascist talk has grown increasingly detached from the historical events and material realities of anti-colonial struggle.
This kind of attempt to ahistorically cast forms of organizing as ‘purist’ is indicative of Western mimeticism, positioned along the continuum of politics/aesthetics. ‘caps’ cleaves this scaffold, agitating for a lived reality that conditions histories while foreclosing the confines of self-contained logics. It goes without saying that ‘caps’ aligns itself with the place of being where the symptom already was—a site of desire rather than appearance. Insisting that the world is no automated given, it animates a recurring question: What is the political/aesthetic when caps surface as a scene of fantasy?
For au JUS, Kunkel deepens her research into the conditions of image production—how they become embedded within the pictorial material and its (semiotic) surfaces. Traversing realms of social cohesion, tormented ontology, and libidinal attachment, she engages with the double bind of performance/procurement—an apparatus designed to maintain the politico-aesthetic economy, where the Other is permitted so long as its presence remains non-intrusive, so long as the Other is not truly Other.
In response, ‘caps’ operates within the dual status of formalist analysis and ephemeral gesture, treating procured objects as sculptural instances. Kunkel’s installative approach unfolds—for the first time in au JUS’s two year history—across all three rooms of the gallery building. With ‘caps,’ she stages a distinct extrapolation of the Congress against Imperialism and Colonial Oppression (Brussels 1927), bringing its occluded contemporaneity to the fore. Through ‘caps,’ Kunkel contours, echoes, and polemicizes sources such as Aimé Césaire’s Phantom (1962) and Milan Kunc’s Penetration of the Dialectic (1992) in an attempt to spoil the ever-imminent process of self-historicization.
Hinging on the omissions conveyed by the mirror of purified history—which grounds being in appearance—a collaborative video work by Jan Kunkel and Linda O. Elsner awaits audiences in the gallery’s basement, an area typically closed to the public. The piece alludes to structuralist filmmaking, founded on the ‘free association of the two producers’ as they confront a mutual concern: forging solidarity and incompatibility.
‘caps’ is accompanied by an essay written by Sebastjan Brank. The exhibition is further complemented by a semi-public program of collective study, organized by the Sex Negativity Research Group, taking place the weekend following the vernissage (February 15-16).
In response, ‘caps’ operates within the dual status of formalist analysis and ephemeral gesture, treating procured objects as sculptural instances. Kunkel’s installative approach unfolds—for the first time in au JUS’s two year history—across all three rooms of the gallery building. With ‘caps,’ she stages a distinct extrapolation of the Congress against Imperialism and Colonial Oppression (Brussels 1927), bringing its occluded contemporaneity to the fore. Through ‘caps,’ Kunkel contours, echoes, and polemicizes sources such as Aimé Césaire’s Phantom (1962) and Milan Kunc’s Penetration of the Dialectic (1992) in an attempt to spoil the ever-imminent process of self-historicization.
Hinging on the omissions conveyed by the mirror of purified history—which grounds being in appearance—a collaborative video work by Jan Kunkel and Linda O. Elsner awaits audiences in the gallery’s basement, an area typically closed to the public. The piece alludes to structuralist filmmaking, founded on the ‘free association of the two producers’ as they confront a mutual concern: forging solidarity and incompatibility.
‘caps’ is accompanied by an essay written by Sebastjan Brank. The exhibition is further complemented by a semi-public program of collective study, organized by the Sex Negativity Research Group, taking place the weekend following the vernissage (February 15-16).