“German workers!”

Emess borrows portraits of famous personalities from commercial banknotes and places them in a new context to each other and to herself by means of poppy overlayering.

For example, Che Guevara and JFK as well as Nelson Mandela and Muhammar Gaddhafi stand opposite each other. One understands how quickly the line between rebel and tyrant, between statesman and terrorist shifts, and above all how much this perception depends on the respective cultural perspective and the current political situation. Emess makes reference to the xenophobic propaganda of the Third Reich in his latest serigraph, which comprises a total of 14 portraits and bears the inscription “German Workers!”. This is done in reference to Klaus Staek’s political posters and thematises the change in national identity caused by an increasingly globalising labour market.

Another part of the exhibition are recent works by the urban artist from the public space, whose transformation into the gallery space is created by means of a walk-in, stage-like spatial installation. The mechanical-nostalgic retro-futurism of this series of works, reminiscent of Jules Verne, is to be seen as a humorous-aesthetic contemplation of everyday technological developments of the present. Emess sketches the vision of a dystopian future whose overambitious inventive spirit sometimes produces absurd blossoms. The exhibition Emess “German Workers!” shows over 80 current works on 220 sqm, curated by Rory Schmitz.

Emess “German Workers!” 6 June – 1 August 2014
Opening: Friday, 6 June 2014, from 19:00 hrs.
Live on the ATM stage: the “little” big band of the RADIOSHOW from RBB, the ex-show band of the Kurt-Krömer Show and the KIKAninchen made human – in other words: Udo Schöbel, Michael Deak and ZAM Johnson are the miniBEATclub!