Events | Lotus Eaters
Berlin | January 30, 2016 | 7:00 PM
The exhibition Lotus Eaters addresses the fictions of good living and its relations towards the aesthetics of apathy. In their material form, they are embodied questions: What kind of memories do objects hold under which influences? Can an abstract sculpture be a aneasthezied gesture? Can an object suffer from depression? Can it flee? The works in Lotus Eaters refer above and beyond the myth of uprooted Lotophagen up to Topoi, substances and figures of alternative culture of life such as Robert Bootzin or Henry Miller’s memoires, Big Sur and the oranges of Hieronymus Bosch: “Some say, they don’t want to dream away their lives. As if life itself wouldn’t be a dream, a very real dream, that you cannot wake up from! We fade from one dream state to the next: from the dream of sleeping to the dream of being awake, from the dream of life to the dream of death. Everyone that ever had a good dream, would never complain about wasting time. If anything – he is happy about taken part in a reality that enhances and increases everyday reality.”
Elif Erkan (*1985, Ankara) lives and works in Los Angeles. Erkan graduated from HfBK Städelschule Frankfurt am Main, where she studied with Willem de Rooij. Her works where internationally shown, for instance at WIELS Centre d’art contemporain (Brussels), at Portikus (Frankfurt am Main), the Maison des Arts (Brussels) and Villa Aurora (Los Angeles).
Lotus Eaters is the first exhibition of Galerie Weiss Berlin. The presentation of American contemporary art is the gallery’s focus. Weiss offers residencies for artists in Berlin, especially from Los Angeles and New York. The artists represented are, among others, Elif Erkan, Alex Becerra, Evan Nesbit, Stanya Kahn, Eric Mack, Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Buck Ellison, Allison Miller, and Keith Mayerson.
