sponsored by
PROGRAM: initiative for art and architectural collaborations
NEWA
Sophie Erlund
Sophie Erlund
NEWA
opening Thursday, January 17th, 7pm
PROGRAM: initiative for art+architectural collaborations
Invalidenstrasse 115, 10115 Berlin-Mitte
t. +49 (0)30 39 509318
programonline.de
info@
programonline.de
Berlin’s recent history is characterized by radical transformations brought on by politics, ideology, cruelty, destruction, fear and ultimately hope – an assaulting and often uncomfortable process of transformation that has left physical reminders of the various ‘Berlins’ that have been. Berlin is a monument to a plural history. With each subsequent sea change, roads are renamed, ruins are rebuilt, and materials from destroyed buildings are reassembled, unrecognizable and mute to the stories of the past.
Berlin-based Danish artist Sophie Erlund has been developing a practice that both dissects and celebrates the presence of past narratives in a contemporary world. For Newa, Erlund has created a sculptural installation with pieces that reference and continue the history of Hotel Newa, the former Russian-owned hotel that is the current home of PROGRAM in Berlin. The building’s colorful history, from its time as Hotel Nordland at the beginning of the 20th century, to the pageantry of the interwar years, to the 1950s and 60s when it housed the Russian secret police, provided the material for a series of sculptures that find their origin within or alongside these histories. Archive images, interviews with previous guests of the hotel, and on site research become both the medium and material with which Erlund expresses the poetics of physically experiencing space (Gaston Bachelard), while acknowledging the constructed nature of this experience (Jeff Wall).
exhibition period: January 17 - March 1
opening hours: Tue-Fri 2-7pm, Sat 11am-7pm
PROGRAM: initiative for art and architectural collaborationsSponsored