Suddenly I saw myself from the back, standing in front of me

New installation by Anke Eckardt
Basotect, Hörtrichter, Audio, 16:24 min, Loop, courtesy the artist

„Suddenly I saw myself from the back, standing in front of me” consists of a sculpture made of Basotect acoustic foam with two listening funnels pointing inwards. The sculpture houses an immaterial audio piece about love and devotion. What do love and devotion mean in our lives? In relation to others and to our environment? To ourselves? Love and devotion find their material and physical translation in the act of listening, which the sculpture demands of its listeners: to bend down, kneel down and listen with their ears pressed to the funnel.

To be heard in this version of the installation: residents of the Villa Massimo in Rome, Italy (2022/23 scholarship holders): Pedro, Charlie, Nike, Ondrej, Muno





The installation was presented at an experimental gallery, the "Kunstbrücke am Wildenbruch", as part of the exhibition "Of Urinals and Ornaments"

Curated by Marie-Therese Bruglacher
Participating artists: Elisabetta Benassi, Anke Eckardt, Rem Koolhaas & Patrick Doan, Luzie Meyer, Theo Range, Jonathan Steiger, Steven Warwick
1 April – 16 July 2023 Kunstbrücke am Wildenbruch
Opening: Friday, 31 March 2023, 6PM

The Kunstbrücke am Wildenbruch bears a tipping point. Originally serving as a public bathroom, it has now been converted into a public space for art, with the urinals being repurposed as ornamental pieces. The shift in the space's significance prompts questions about its past and present meaning. In particular, how do the topics, images, and identities, embodied in the artworks here presented get affected by the space’s former function, which aesthetically is still present?

The participating artists are exploring political and social structures, conventions, and power relations as well as geographies, ideologies, and resulting gaps. By producing incongruencies and establishing new relations, they challenge entrenched notions and open up a space that allows for ambivalence, nuances, and humor. Their strategies, being bold, comical or subversive, speak of the brutality and absurdity sometimes apparent in the world's normative order. Playing with tipping points, they question how we see the world, perceive it, interpret it, and ultimately project it again.

Can we reverse how we see the world? Is it possible to relinquish our interpretive sovereignty and embrace a new perspective? Or do we become trapped in our own biases and experiences as we age? "Of Urinals and Ornaments" poses these and other open- ended questions, prompting a thoughtful examination of an unstable, shifting ground.



Credit photos: Nihad Nino Pušija. Of Urinals and Ornaments, installation view, Kunstbrücke am Wildenbruch, Berlin, 1.4.-16.7.2023 Text installation and exhibition: Marie-Therese Bruglacher