Crossing Borders

Date :

Dates

24 April ‒ 18 July, 2021: Exhibitions
Opneing hours: Tue - Sat 2 - 7 pm, Sun + holidays 10 am - 7 pm and after appointment
The exhibition spaces and Café Botanika are wheelchair accessible.
Please observe the rules due to the lawful pandemic regulations and ask for information before visiting.

23 April, Friday 7 pm: EXCLUSIVE ONLINE livestreamed – exhibition opening
on-site participation is not possible due to the pandemic situation.
Greetings:
- Josef Mederer, president of the District Council
Introductions:
- Nina Vrbanová, art historian, Bratislava, curator of the exhibition Sugarloaf Manufacture and Archive
- Alexis Dworsky, artist , Freising, curator of the exhibition Crossing Borders

1 June, Tuesday 5 pm: meetup+art
Guided tour of the exhibitions with Alexandra M. Hoffmann*

13 June, Sunday 4 pm: KUNST#TAG 077
Artist talk with Ilona Németh and artists of the exhibition Crossing Borders
ONLINE livestreamed – on-site participation if possible*

Change of date! NEW: 4 July, Sunday 4 pm: KUNST#TAG 078
Lecture by Edit András, art historian, Budapest; afterwards
Artist talk with Ilona Németh and Edit András about the project Eastern Sugar
ONLINE livestreamed – on-site participation if possible*

* Due to the pandemic situation only a limited number of participants is allowed; prior registration and confirmation required: info@schafhof-kuenstlerhaus.de.

About the exhibition Crossing Borders

Participating artists:

Heath Bunting (GB)
Mladen Miljanović (BH)
Wermke/Leinkauf (D)

Curator: Alexis Dworsky, artist and curator, Freising and Munich
Concept: Eike Berg, director of the Center for Art

The project Eastern Sugar is co-financed by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

Overview

The exhibition takes place as part of the international art project Eastern Sugar, initiated by the Hungarian-Slovak artist Ilona Németh. Six art institutions from six European countries collaborate in the project that is co-financed by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. The project partners together organize projects, exhibitions, workshops and research work are over a two-year period.
A two-part presentation will take place at the Schafhof European Center for Art Upper Bavaria.

Eastern Sugar is an international, interdisciplinary, contemporary visual art project with a strong focus on artistic research. Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the project intends to reflect on how these changes impacted Central European countries and Europe as a whole. The exhibition Crossing Borders presents artistic positions that explore, question and overcome in subversive ways borders in and around Europe.

The Berlin based artist duo Wermke/Leinkauf draws a line from the German division to the present in their reenactment of Überwindungsübungen (Exercises in Getting Over). The Bosnian-Herzegovinian artist Mladen Miljanović transforms depictions from military books into a guide for refugees on how to cross borders. The British internet artist Heath Bunting documents his adventurous crossings of European borders in the real and virtual world.

Two video interviews in the framework of the project Eastern Sugar by Ilona Németh are the links to the exhibition on the 1st floor. They connect the history of the Slovakian sugar factories to the changing relevance of borders after 1989.

Wermke/Leinkauf: Overcoming Exercises
Reenactment, Berlin, 2015; Installation: 6-channel Slide projection, framed C-Print, handout

The Berlin based artist artists duo Wermke/Leinkauf is especially known for their work in which they replaced the two US flags on the Brooklyn Bridge with white flags. The works of Wermke/Leinkauf often deal with political issues and are very site specific. Thereby climbing and overcoming obstacles is used as an artistic strategy.
In the exhibition in the Schafhof their work Überwindungsübungen (Exercises in Getting Over) is presented. The starting point for this project are historical archive photos that show East German soldiers simulate the overcoming of the Berlin Wall – to make it more difficult to overcome this border. Wermke/Leinkauf transfers these fake escapes into the present and carry out the corresponding overcoming exercises along the former German-German border in Berlin.

Mladen Miljanović: The Didactic Wall
Engraved drawings on a marble wall, handbooks, 2019

Mladen Miljanović is an artist based in Bosnia-Herzegovina whose works were shown among others at the 55th Venice Biennale and in many galleries and museums, especially in Eastern Europe. The starting point for his work The Didactic Wall were illustrated books that he came across during his time as a soldier. They contained information on how one can overcome wire fences and orientate in the wilderness. Miljanović transforms this military information into a guide for refugees. This shows us that Europe is still separated by borders that are almost insurmountable and life-threatening for many people.

Heath Bunting: BorderXing
Performative adventure; multimedia installation and internet platform, Tate Modern, London and work in process, since 2002

Heath Bunting is internationally known as a net artist and was represented at documenta X, among others. For two decades, Bunting has also been practically investigating how borders in Europe can be crossed unofficially: He goes on subversive hikes and explores secret routes. Bunting documents his adventures on the Internet – with maps, a botanical guide and advices on how to hide from watchdogs. He gives lectures on this and workshops in public spaces. His ongoing cross-media project BorderXing not only illustrates the limitation of physical borders, but also that the Internet is not a limitless space.