From Heaven High
SIMON WACHSMUTH
SOLO & FRIENDS
25.05.2024 - 20.06.2024
Vernissage: 25. May 2024,
4-7 pm
"In order to understand this work of art completely, one should drill daily for twelve hours with heavily packed knapsack in full marching gear on the Tempelhof Field." (John Heartfield & Rudolf Schlichter on the "Prussian Archangel" at DADA, Berlin 1920) MKM Gallery presents a video installation by Simon Wachsmuth, referencing the famous "Prussian Archangel" of the Berlin DADA exhibit 1920: a puppet hanging from the exhibit's ceiling wearing a Prussian uniform with a pig's mask on his face. The work was understood then as a scathing assault on the military, and on the bourgeois culture at large. The artist's video work provokes a re-visiting of post WW I anti-war iconography way beyond the debates engulfing ruangrupa's documenta fifteen in Kassel 2022. SIMON WACHSMUTH (*1964 in Hamburg) graduated from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and his work has been shown in numerous international solo- and group exhibitions since. Wachsmuth was a participant in DOCUMENTA 12, the 11th International Istanbul Biennial, and the legendary ATLAS exhibition curated by Georges Didi-Huberman. He is represented by Zilberman Istanbul/Berlin. Simon Wachsmuth lives an works in Berlin. Solo & Friends exhibitions are dedicated to one single position, accompanied by the entire current ensemble of MKM arists. Simon Wachsmuth's From Heaven High is accompanied by works of Walid Raad, Elisabeth Masé, Ali Kaaf, Taysir Batniji, Katharina Karrrenberg, Benyamin Reich, Maryam Motallebzadeh, Anita Kapraljevic, Chaza Charafeddine, Željka Mićanović Miljković, Ekin Su Koç, Emin Turan, Patricia Lambertus, Furkan Akhan, Razan Nassreddine, Alexander Polzin, Chris Newman, Raziye Kubat, Maliheh Afnan, Joseph Sassoon Semah, Elza Javakhishvili, Eva Beierheimer & Miriam Laussegger, Antonia Baehr
Simon Wachsmuth (2022)
Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her
video-sketch. 11'40. b/w. mute