Christine Würmell contact: christine_wuermell@yahoo.de

Christine Würmell
contact:
christine_wuermell@yahoo.de
selected works
Untitled (black version, Cairo)
above: Untitled (Shortly before the Egyptian constitutional referendum. Last
night‘s protests at the presidential palace left 9 dead. Tahrir Square, at noon,
the atmosphere is calm, the sun is shining.),
to the right: Untitled (It is Dec 2012 and half a year before the military coup
d‘etat. In the museum it is business as usual. During the 2011 revolution protesters from Tahrir Square were detained and tortured by the army inside the
Egyptian Museum.),
2015, Fine Art Prints on Photo-Rag, 50 x 70 cm each
Untitled (white version, New York City)
Untitled (Stocks took record tumble 3 years before the Occupy Wall
Street movement / set up camp - occupied - nearby Zuccotti Park
for two months. / Laurie said: there was a serious effort to get rid
of [the Occupy movement], people are too busy and distracted to
recognize that.)
2013/2014, 4 annotated Prints on Photo-Rag,
21 x 30 cm each
Untitled (black version, New York City)
above: Untitled (3 years before the Occupy Wall Street
movement),
to the right: Untitled (Laurie said: there was a serious effort
to get rid of [the Occupy movement], people are too busy
and distracted to recognize that.)
2015, from a series of Fine Art Prints on Photo-Rag,
29 x 21,5 cm, 50 x 66,5 cm, 50 x 37,5 cm
Untitled (black version, Frankfurt/Main)
left to right: Untitled (15.11.2011 - ); Untitled
(297); Untitled ( - 06.08.2012)
2015, Fine Art Prints on Photo-Rag,
37,5 x 50 cm each
Untitled (black version, Berlin)
o.T. (10. 2010, Ende 2015 stehen drei Vorschläge zur Umnutzung des
ehemaligen „Haus der Statistik“ zur Diskussion: a) Abriss und Neubau
eines Wohn- und Geschäftsquartiers, b) Umbau zum Behördenzentrum und c) Umbau zur kombinierten Nutzung mit Wohnräumen für
Flüchtlinge und mit Arbeitsräumen für Kunst, Kultur und Bildung.)
2015, Fine Art Prints on Photo-Rag, 40 x 60 cm
o.T. (09. 2012, Seit 2008 steht der Gebäudekomplex, in
der sich kommerzialisierenden Innenstadt, leer. Obdachlose nutzen mittlerweile die Nischen als Unterschlupf.)
2015, Fine Art Prints on Photo-Rag, 40 x 60 cm
Untitled (Neues Berlin)
Untitled #1 (Ende Zwischennutzung,
Berlin, Greifswalderstraße 219)
2015/16, from a series of Fine Art
Prints on Photo-Rag, 21 x 30 cm
Untitled (Neues Berlin)
left top + bottom: Untitled #2 (Anfang Kapitalanlage, Greifswalderstraße 200, Berlin);
Untitled #5 (Anfang Wiederaufbau Schloss,
Berlin, Unter den Linden), 2015/16, from a
series of Fine Art Prints on Photo-Rag, 21 x
30 cm each
right top + bottom: Untitled #3 (Ende alternatives Wohnprojekt, Berlin, Liebigstraße
14); Untitled #6 (Im Übergang, Berlin, Bernauer-/Oderbergerstraße), 2015/16, from a
series of Fine Art Prints
on Photo-Rag, 21 x 30 cm each
Ausschnitte aus der deutschen Presse, 2012 - 2015 (Ukraine)
Ausschnitt III: Euromaidan-Aktivisten
haben des Rathaus besetzt
2014/2015, detail from a sequence of 8,
Fine Art Print on Photo-Rag,
21 x 30 cm (framed)
Ausschnitte aus der deutschen Presse, 2012 - 2015 (Ukraine)
Ausschnitt IV: es heisst, die
Menschen hätten den Präsidenten gestürzt
Ausschnitt V: Krimtartaren
protestieren
Ausschnitt VII: ukrainische
Soldaten und ein Zivilist
Ausschnitt VIII: Friedensverhandlungen
2014/2015, details from a
sequence of 8 Fine Art
Prints on Photo-Rag,
21 x 30 cm (framed)
Monuments and Publics
Wladimir Iljitsch, Berlin Friedrichshain,
1970-1991, Inkjet Print, 2014
Rosa, Berlin Friedrichshain, 1977 Inkjet Print, 2006/2007
Karl und Friedrich, Berlin Mitte,
1986 -, Inkjet Print, 2011
Von Höfen und Gärten (Of Courtyards and Gardens)
The exhibition “Von Höfen und Gärten”
(Of Courtyards and Gardens) comprises
a wall text and two serial works amongst
others. They take into account the urban
context and role of the exhibition’s venue as an engaging space in flux, within
the ongoing economic and socio-political restructuring processes in Berlin. Visual and linguistic phenomena of these
processes such as the language of real
estate advertisement or the intervening
imagery of graffiti, are both, the matter
and material for analysis and speculation on the mutual effects between the
forms and ideas of social organisation
and a singular life. (Gregor Hose, exhibition press release)
Von Höfen und Gärten (Of Courtyards and Gardens)
Showroom (1 year, 3 colors, 2 projects),
exhibition view Cleopatra’s Berlin
2009/2011, c-print and
passepartout, 40 x 30 cm each
Showroom (1 year, 3 colors, 2 projects),
details #6 and #9
2009/2011, c-print and
passepartout, 40 x 30 cm each
R 84
Text in the four frames: “With clear varnish
the most beautiful graffitiartworks of the past are integrated into the
new hallway and preserved. A squat with
the classical communal spaces is turned
into a normal apartment building with 19
apartments. We, as a collective group
of occupants, demand a political solution which allows us to continue with the
realization our ideas of a free, collective
self-determined way of life.”
R 84
details Cleopatra’s Berlin
2009/2011, 4 c-prints
and 4 inkjet-prints,
40 x 30 cm each
Kategorie Thematische Sammlung Friedrichshain, Abriss des Lenin Denkmals 1991
in Friedrichshain, Presseartikel (Category Thematic Collection Friedrichshain, Deinstallation of the Lenin Monunment in Friedrichshain 1991)
Kategorie Thematische
Sammlung ...
2012, detail,
Inkjet Prints framed,
20 x 30 cm each
Kategorie Thematische Sammlung Friedrichshain, Abriss des Lenin Denkmals 1991
in Friedrichshain, Presseartikel (Category Thematic Collection Friedrichshain, Deinstallation of the Lenin Monunment in Friedrichshain 1991)
The district museum’s archivist who was responsible for archiving all newspaper documents of the
controversial and ideological debate around the
deinstallation of the Lenin monument in the Eastern part of a re-united Berlin in 1991/1992, at that
time had decided to re-use scrap-paper--such as
flyers, posters announcing the district museum’s
exhibitions, which she or he manually made to fit
the standard-size archival file folders--as support
for the archival material. The work contains all reassembled reproductions of posters found in the
Lenin-folders.
Kategorie Thematische
Sammlung ...
2012, detail,
Inkjet Prints framed,
20 x 30 cm each
Oberflächenaktiv II (Version1)
“What happens when the semiotic language of protest is transferred into the
museum? Does it become a mere quote,
experience an aesthetic change of meaning, or raise increased attention for forms
of protest outside the museum? ... it remains open what the artist is showing:
a museum wall that has been attacked
on which framed objects defiantly assert
themselves, or a collage comprised of an
Actionist, spontaneous art process and
explanatory elements of meaning. Raimar
Stange speaks of “de facto incompatibilities” in Würmell’s art. She expects us to
recall entombed anarchic protest in the
abstract picture, to divine the aesthetic
content in protest, and at the same time to
sense the incompatibilities of both modes
of perception. Whether art requires the inflammatory spirit or protest requires aesthetic concretion remains equally as open
as the problem of the interpretation of her
semiotic language or its denial of meaning.” (Guido Boulboullé, “Color in Flux”
exhibition catalogue)
Oberflächenaktiv II (Version1)
exhibition view Weserburg Museum
für Moderne Kunst, 2011,
acrylic paint on wall, inkjet-prints
(framed), sticky label,
146,3 x 269,3 m + 62 x 82 cm
Oberflächenaktiv II (Version1)
Oberflächenaktiv II
(Version1)
2011
inkjet-print (framed)
62 x 82 cm
Neues Berlin
For each exhibition a new
painting is to be made on
site - not necessarily by the
artist herself. Hence, the
artwork exists in versions.
Neues Berlin
2010
exhibition view
spray-paint on
canvas and wall,
dimensions variable
Abwertungsmassnahme (Measure of Devaluation)
Abwertungsmassnahme
(Measure of Devaluation)
2010
exhibition view
spray-paint on wall
dimensions variable
In a different light
A well-lit graffito declares a wall in the main room
of a gallery as profitable. Facing the hallway, on
the backside of the wall hangs a framed photomontage. It depicts a graffito-slogan “Wand
rentiert nicht! (Wall not profitable!)” spray-painted
onto two concrete walls, which are designated
for advertisement.
In a different light
2009
exhibition view Galerie
Czarnowska, Berlin
spray-paint and photo-collage, dimensions
variable and 30 x 30 cm
Coming Soon: Insurrection
Coming soon
2007, exhibition view Galerie
Fernand Leger/CREDAC,
Ivry-sur-Seine, acrylic paint
on wall, 3,5 x 4 m
Oberflächenaktiv (Surface Active)
The Kunstverein’s multifunctional space between exhibition hall, artothek, offices and
street hosts a library, a lounge area and the franchise of a popular coffee chain. It is
a space divided into a zone of transit and one for rest. The transit zone, directly connecting street and exhibtion hall, is marked by an approximately 20m long wall which
can be viewed from the resting area. Along this wall I installed an image sequence, a
speculative narrative of transit of forms between places, discourses and times.
Oberflächenaktiv
exhibition views Bonner Kunstverein,
2009, mixed media, 2,9 x 20 m
Preemptive Design
Preemptive Design, 2009,
from a series of Fine Art Prints
in various sizes, some reworked
with Marker or Spray-Paint
Dissonanzproduktion
Paint bombs were thrown to install a White Cube in which signs
of protest and Action Painting
lose their difference. “With a variety of critically and reflexively
edited information new meanings
are inscribed, which might now
lead away from a specification of
their respective content and on
the contrary open up unconventional and complex narratives.”
(Maren Lübbke-Tidow, Dissonanz
in der Schleuse, von 100 Magazin
#06, 2009)
Dissonanzproduktion
exhibition view
Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin,
Projektraum, 2009
mixed media, 3 x 4 x 4,5 m
Dissonanzproduktion / Futures
Dissonanzproduktion/Futures
Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin,
Projektraum, 2009
mixed media, 3 x 4 x 4,5 m
Dissonanzreduktion
Dissonanzreduktion means a behavior that aims at reducing or avoiding (cognitive) dissonances. The case in point here is climate change and its different
media representions. Scientific prognosis, advertising, everyday accessoires and
news headlines are deconstructed, recombined and spatially new entangled.
Dissonanzreduktion
2008, exhibition views
Kunstmuseum Thurgau/
Kartause Ittingen, mixed
media, dimensions
variable
Druckbuch
Druckbuch
2008, details,
artist book,
36 pages,
29,7 x 21 cm
A collection of image material including found images, sketches and the reuse of fragments of older
work, associating semantically and aesthetically
across fields and time-space observations of the
financial and economic crisis’ real formations in
the media and urban space.
People have the - Power - to the People
The frontal installation uses strategies of advertising and the media such
as those of trailers and teasers. Here a narration is merely hinted at in a
most spectacular way. Focusing on these strategies and building relations and oppositions on different levels, images from the fields of activism and advertising (and their respective appropriations) as well as
images relating to the economy and web politics were brought together.
People have the Power - to the People
2007
exhibition view NBK Berlin
mixed media, 4 x 8 m
People have the - Power - to the People
People have the Power - to the People
2007, detail,
mixed media, 4 x 8 m
Spray City
In the book „Spray City: Graffiti in Berlin“, which was checked out of the local branch of the
public library, three smuggled in tags were discovered. The same tags extended and multiplied
from the public library to the public space in the library’s vicinity (to sites demanding courage
and improvisation to get to, yet are widely and easily visible) or vice versa. The documentation
was translated into contour-drawings. To ask about the relationship between the general social organisation and values and those of the writers, I combined the writers’ with the ordinary
points of interest, marking them in a public information map.
Spray City, 2005/2007,
exhibition view + details
Kunstverein Göttingen
mixed media, 1,4 x 2,8 m
Coming soon
In the exhibition space a slogan was rendered by paintbombs. The action in the
exhibition space was extended into the
streets via the representation of another
slogan rendered by paintbombs and distributed in rented advertising-lightboxes
in the vicinity of the art-institution. Both
are protest slogans from 1968 and 2006
marking not only dates of violent political
protests, but also indicating the time in
which the architectural complex was built
and the exhibition conceptualized. The
realisation of this utopian all including
structure assembles next to the art institution shops, apartments and community
centers. Today, the unemployment and
crime rate in this suburban area are high,
and the complex is being abandoned.
What forms and practices will emerge
from the ruins of modernity’s utopian architecture and the welfare state?
Coming soon
2007, exhibition view Galerie
Fernand Leger/CREDAC,
Ivry-sur-Seine, acrylic paint
on wall, 3,5 x 4 m
Coming soon
Coming soon
2007, exhibition view Galerie
Fernand Leger/CREDAC,
Ivry-sur-Seine and area,
backlight-posters, Lightbox,
1,85 x 1,1 m + 80 x 120 cm
Global Player
Global Player
2007, exhibition view Galerie
Gebrüder Lehmann, Dresden
mixed media, 2,6 x 2,2 m
For the annual calendar of the
Swiss art magazine „Kunst-Bulletin“, with its marked art events,
a selection of activist’s events
for this year was added and
hung onto the residue of previously thrown blue and white
paint bombs. The combination
of blue and white paint bombs
leads to a montage of contradictory signifiers and status
symbols regarding the Argentinian soccer-icon Maradona, who
is depicted as a “global player”
not only in soccer but also as
activist and TV-host conversing
with Fidel Castro.
I/U Suck
I/U Suck
2007
spray-paint on canvas
and wall, lightjet-print
on foam-board
ca. 65 x 80 cm
For each exhibition a new painting-installation is to be
made on site - not necessarily by the artist herself. Hence,
the artwork exists in versions.
Recycled # 02: Some Contemporary Constants Regarding Art
A stack of A4-sized copies of Recycled # 02:
Some Contemporary Constants Regarding
Art was placed next to a stack of same sized
copies of the press-release of the group-exhibition Every story tells a picture at the Berlin
exhibition space Sparwasser Hq. It was part
of my installation which investigated the role
of publicity in the field of contemporary art.
Additional versions Recycled # 01 and # 03
exist, they are a print version which was published in the Dutch artzine Fucking Good Art,
the Berlin edition and a series of drawings in
color on watercolor paper.
Recycled # 02: Some Contemporary Constants Regarding Art, 2006, b/w-copies,
29,7 x 21 cm each
o.T. (untitled) I + II
o.T. I + II
2005/2007
Collagen
60 x 80 cm +
65 x 100 cm
The cross-fertilisation here, of artists using the political tools of protest and manifesto for conceptual ends, or engaging in everyday activities
as performative actions, is shown alongside the activities in their original contexts. An untitled collage from 2005 overlays several systems,
bringing together unrelated documents to prise open some space for fresh analysis. A pencil drawing from a photograph of Joseph Beuys’
1972”Sweeping Up” action at Karl-Marx-Platz in Berlin following the May Day demonstrations is juxtaposed with a contemporary newspaper
clipping, showing the reality some thirty years later where new German labour laws (Hartz IV) compel the unemployed into taking maintenance
jobs for one Euro per hour. In a further example of conceptual art practice meeting social reality, a newspaper image of a demonstration is
headed with an excerpt from feminist artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Maintenance Art Manifesto from 1969, asking “After the revolution, who
is going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning.”
A related work, “Untitled (My friend the tree)”, 2007, posits a similarly collapsed frame of time and reference. Another handdrawn reproduction
of a Beuys action, this time the planting of trees in Kassel in 1982. Three time frames appear simultaneously as Beuys’ utopian gesture is
projected forwards to the present reality where trees are cut down to make space for modern private housing developments, while Alexandra’s
lament, updated in the form of graffiti, brings the reference full circle. (Excerpt from Kirsty Bell “Christine Würmell” in Camera Austria # 98)
Who’s afraid of magenta, yellow and blue?
Who’s afraid of magenta,
yellow and blue?
2006
exhibition view
Camera Austria, Graz
mixed media, 4 x 10 m
Who’s afraid of magenta, yellow and blue?
“The accumulation of contradictory,
overlapping systems of reference and
interpretation reaches critical mass in
Würmell’s installation Who’s afraid of magenta, yellow and blue? (2006). The numerous assembled elements here present evidence of advertising and graffiti,
corporate co-opting, media manipulation
and political activism in the public realm,
all articulated through a number of aesthetic devices that allude to conceptual
art strategies and abstract expressionist
practice. Together these produce a complex analysis of the porous boundaries
between high art, advertising, politics and
media.“ (Kirsty Bell, Camera Austria #98,
2007)
Who’s afraid of magenta,
yellow and blue?, 2006,
exhibition view, detail,
Camera Austria, Graz,
mixed media
Fußnoten Archiv
Fußnoten Archiv is an earlier version
of Kategorie Thematische Sammlung
... showing the back and front sides
next to each other. At this point the
archive was still under construction,
only a small part was available for
viewing.
Fußnoten Archiv
2005, series of
8 C-Prints,
30 x 40 cm each
Friedenstauben
Friedenstauben
2005
watercolor on
canvas and
inkjet-print
50 x 50 cm
Signature Style
Signature Style is a series of photographs of the Ernst Thälmann monument in Berlin, taken since 2004. Ernst Thälmann was chairman of the German communist party,
KPD, in the 1920s. He was executed on direct order by Hitler in 1944. The monument,
which was placed on the protocol route to and fro Erich Honecker’s residence in the
Waldsiedlung Wandlitz and the Palace of the Republic in Berlin-Mitte, was inaugurated
only three years before the end of the GDR. From the monument’s three part ensemble,
two narrativizing parts have been deinstalled, what remains is the bust in the center of a
wide space. While this free space is popular for a variety of people, the bust’s pedastal
is especially popular with graffiti writers who use it as public canvas, exhibition space.
Currently this is one of the few remaining unclaimed sites in the center of the city.
Signature Style
2004 – ongoing
lightjet-prints in
archival sleeves,
30 x 40 cm each
Buffing
Buffing
2004
exhibition view Galerie
Erna Hecey, Brussels
4 drawings and
4 photographs (framed),
1,0 x 2,1 m
Inhabitants of Los Angeles can call the non-profit organization
“Hollywood Beautification Team” to come by their houses and paint
over unwanted and dreaded graffiti.
The 4 drawings and 4 photographs of buffing suggest a relation between this practice and Abstract Expressionism during the 1950s.
Public Library L.A.
Public Library L.A.
2003
exhibition view Galerie
der Stadt Schwaz
series of 10 photographs
in archival sleeves,
50 x 60 cm each
Reproductions of all anonymous tagged pages, with reproductions of
tags, in the book “Wallbangin’”, an academic study of gangs and graffiti in Los Angeles. The book was checked out of the public library in
Downtown Los Angeles in order to reproduce all pages with mentioned
graffiti.
Wiederholen
Wiederholen
2003
Video, 6:53 min (loop)
video stills
Riffing on a choreography by Merce
Cunningham, with sound by John
Cage; An arrangement of tags by
telecommunication, water and gas
companies were sprayed on a roof
at times used by graffiti writers in
Los Angeles, imitating both the
dance steps and the signs.
Curatorial Project
2014
The pursuit of public happiness?
In times of accelerated social, cultural and economic upheaval, how do artists and their artworks reflect on the public life of
societies? Do they design proposals, participate, or do they withdraw to experiment with alternative forms of political praxis
and analyse “things“? The group show The pursuit of public happiness? is conceived as a "parliament of artworks," staging
a debate around two core questions, namely: What is the meaning of political community at a time when economic power appears to have trumped the sovereignty of nation states and supra-national bodies like the UN and what is its artistic
representation?
The show's title is drawn from Hannah Arendt's "On Revolution," encountered both on a 2012 visit to Cairo where
discussions of the book were in the air, and then importantly through the ongoing "Hannah Arendt Reading Group" in Berlin
organized by the writer Fred Dewey. Dewey, a long-time colleague of Michael Baers, Jeremiah Day and myself, notes how
Arendt's emphasis on public happiness can have "crucial significance for artists, writers, and anyone concerned with representation. It exposes how privatized and economic our notion of happiness has become, but also how a different notion of
happiness, one that uses the word public, can clarify and bring to life complex representational questions."
In the American Declaration of Independence the term "the pursuit of happiness" reveals an ambivalence seized
upon by Hannah Arendt, who in "On Revolution" refers to the dual nature of the phrase. It can be understood as meaning
the primacy of the individual's right to their own private interests, economic and otherwise, or alternately, as the individual's
inalienable right to participate in the political decision-making process. Founding a political project on this dual notion of
happiness as economic/cultural freedom and the right to participate in politics transformed Elightenment ideas of free will
and autonomy into a concrete political demand. "Freedom for them [the thinker’s of the French Revolution],“ writes Arendt,
"could only exist in public; it was a tangible, worldly reality, something created be men to be enjoyed by men rather than a
gift or a capacity, it was the man-made public space or market-place which antiquity had known as the area where freedom
appears and becomes visible to all."
Perhaps today this same dual structure confronts us. But it has become visible now in the gap between the continued deployment of notions of happiness (in the double nature inherited from the period of Liberal revolution) as a central
tenet of Western democracy and the ongoing foreclosure of the public space of politics (and economic mobility) by the
neoliberal project.
The pursuit of public happiness? seeks to look at these questions through the work of various artists working in
the present, but also past works. Using a variety of approaches, the participating artists confront this gap through a shared
concern with discrepancies—between present and past uses of public space; between normative markers of democratic
subjectivity and other marginalized politico-ethnic subjects; between the vacuousness of the graphical language employed
in party politics and the equally empty programs they offer; between the notions emerging in particular historical epochs
and their subsequent iteration.
Excerpt from the press release
For further information:
http://www.arratiabeer.com/index.php?template=press_release&id=TPOPH
The pursuit of public happiness?
Exhibition view with works by:
Jeremiah Day, Annika Eriksson,
Martha Rosler and Carlos Amorales
(clockwise from top left).
The pursuit of public happiness?
Exhibition view with works
by: Iman Issa, Peter Friedl
and Michael Baers.