Galerie Crystal Ball

/Performance Summer/ Ich Ich Ich : Ich bin Ich !

Wir bitten Sie dazu, selbst als Star auf unserer Vernissage im Kunstpunkt zu erscheinen!

die Galerie Crystal Ball zu Gast im Kunstpunkt Berlin, Schlegelstraße 6

Eröffnung mit Happening und Performance am 14ten April, 19 Uhr

Ich bin Ich, ca. 12 min, film still, with “Pas de Costumes”, Berlin 2023 – exhibition and performance project, video, installation, 2019-2023

Am Freitag, 14. April 2023 um 19 Uhr eröffnet die Ausstellung ICH ICH ICH im KUNSTPUNKT BERLIN,
Schlegelstr. 6, 10115 Berlin-Mitte.

Together with another artist collective (Stay Hungry), Pas de Costumes is invited to explore the toxic effects of egomaniacal artist cult during Gallery Weekend at Kunstpunkt Berlin in April. In spring 2019, Natascha Frioud and Manfred Kirschner began the project of “I am I.” Since then, a loose group of female artists has formed around the Crystal Ball exhibition space in Pas de Costumes. The current presentation features works by Caren Sielaff, Miriam Jadischke, Berit Schneider, Stefan Ruf, Zoe Tomruck, Lydia Karstadt, Natascha Frioud, Gabi Garland and Frank Schoppmeier.
“I am I” comprises a group of works centered around the fictional artist-personality Arielle Schuberti. An exhibition opening, a series of artworks, accompanying performances and a documentary video, create the person Arielle. A strongly self-referential person who is convinced to be a very important artist. The video jumps between fiction; the vernissage with play scenes and reality, showing the artists working on the project. The complex of “I am I” aims to problematize the cliché, the narcissistic artist, in the form of over-individualization, which in its exaggeration can have a toxic effect on society.
Pas de Costumes has been working on the concept since 2019. In the process, an “Oneday Exhibition” with works by the artist “Arielle Schuberti” has been realized in the exhibition space Crystal Ball in Kreuzberg. This opening of the exhibition of “Arielle” was promoted with posters, internet presence and email invitations. Crystal Ball had, as usual, invited to one of her vernissages. Unknowing visitors were then confronted with a fake presentation and a highly performative evening. At the exhibition opening, fiction and reality collided, Arielle played on the keyboard of her self-absorption and egocentricity. After a few questionable performances, the situation was hardly tenable. Arielle destroyed one of her works when a buyer showed interest in it. It came to an éclat with the gallery owner and culminated in that the artist destroyed her works in front of the public.
In the exhibition ICH ICH ICH at Kunstpunkt, Pas de Costumes will show the film “Ich bin Ich” for the first time, as an official document of the project. The premiere will be accompanied by an installation of leftover artworks by artist Arielle Schuberti, as well as works by her friends. An extraordinary, introductory happening will accompany the performance group’s exhibition.

For this, we ask you to come as a star yourself to our vernissage at Kunstpunkt!

Exhibition dates:

Vernissage: 14.04.2023, ab 19 Uhr
Ausstellungsdauer: 15.04. – 01.05.2023
Öffnungszeiten: Fr 17–21 Uhr, Sa + So 15–19 Uhr
Finissage & GET-TOGETHER NETZWERK: 01.05.2023, ab 15 Uhr

Becky: Walk the Village with the Cuckoo Bird

Exhibition opening with concert, Fr. 31. März um 19 Uhr

Exhibition from March, 31st to April, 2nd, 14 bis 19 Uhr

Becky c/o Crystal Ball, Berlin
Becky, Foto: Emily Leshner

A swan looks dirty on closer inspection. Words lie on the tongue and loll in the fur. And the heart is nothing more than a hollow muscle. These are the things Becky sings about. Becky (She/ They) is drag persona, performance artist and puppeteer of herself. From first Youtube music videos, 2022 evolved into charming live gigs with a lot of makeup and minimalist drums. Her songs are intimate insights into a queer Berlin of today with a view on the East German province of yesterday, alternating between melancholy and absurdity. With a musical DIY attitude and German as well as English lyrics, sometimes poetic, sometimes painfully direct, she creates tender little worlds that resonate. Becky’s sound combines singer-songwriter elements, pop melodies and alternative rock sounds. Her first EP, Tossing and Turning, was released in January. In “Walk The Village With The Cuckoo Bird,” drag persona Becky strides through the place of her childhood, a dreamy East German village, always on the lookout for other queer people. In the process, each step is also an act of reclaiming space. Sounds and stories buzz around her. According to a local legend, a man was saved from the flood precisely because he imitated the call of the cuckoo and the villagers heard this call for help. The sound collage in the video plays with this legend, the cuckoo call, the sounds from the surroundings, fragmenting and deconstructing them until no orientation is possible anymore. The work associatively questions the stories of the village, which are concentrated in the baroque castle of the place. The venue of today was a secret file storage facility of the GDR and previously an SA sports school. “Walk The Village With The Cuckoo Bird” was shown in a first version at the festival Traumburg 2022 (Dornburg Castle on the Elbe) and can now be seen for the first time in Berlin.

Walk The Village With The Cuckoo Bird, 2 Kanal Video Installation, Mathias Becker, 2022
Crystal Ball Berlin