Berlin, 21 August 2020 – The world is out of kilter. What form might international artistic and cultural exchange take on during a global pandemic? ifa Gallery Berlin takes advantage of this moment of immobility to place works from the ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) collection in a contemporary context.
Artist and Master Student
In the current climate, the unsettling yet touching works of Rebecca Horn take on a new significance. Her films, performances and sculptures open up a space between the poles of life and death, past and future, interior and exterior, human and machine. Horn not only influenced a subsequent generation of artists; she actively sought a dialogue with them.
The exhibition presents such a dialogue with her master class student Antonio Paucar, an artist who lives between Berlin and Huancayo (Peru). In his performances, Paucar moves through private, public and political spaces and landscapes that are both culturally and symbolically laden. He waits for change, senses transience, the power of the unconscious, sows memories so as not to forget. In poetry they find a shared language of proximity, both transcending bodies and boundaries. Therein lies their vulnerability—and their strength.
Unique Collection of Contemporary Art
The ifa art collection consists of around 23,000 works, most of which have been acquired in the context of ifa traveling exhibitions over the course of the last 40 years. In 1991, parts of the collection of the Zentrum für Kunstausstellungen der DDR (Centre for Art Exhibitions of the GDR) were conferred to the ifa. Pieces from the collection are currently on display in 35 exhibitions around the world. Further items are on loan to exhibitions and museums. The current exhibition draws on work from the 1999 touring exhibition Rebecca Horn. Time Goes By.
Rebecca Horn
Rebecca Horn, born 1944 in Michelstadt, Germany, has created an evergrowing oeuvre comprising performances, films, drawings, texts, sculptures, and installations since the early 1970s. The inspiration and the force field of her work lie in the human body. She presented her first major performances at documenta 5 in Kassel 1972, and since then her works have been shown in numerous solo exhibitions, at leading international institutions, such as large retrospectives at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (1993), Tate Gallery, London (1994), Nationalgalerie Berlin (1994), Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin (2006), as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2009) and the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo (2010). In 1989 she became the first female professor at the Berlin University of the Arts. For her work, Rebecca Horn has received many awards and honours. In 2010, the artist founded the Moontower Foundation as a place to exhibit her own work and to support younger artists.
Antonio Paucar
Antonio Paucar, born 1973 in Huancayo, Peru, studied fine arts at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee and the Universität der Künste Berlin (with Prof. Lothar Baumgarten and Rebecca Horn) as well as at the Chelsea College of Arts and Design in London. In 2005, he finished his postgraduate studies at the UdK (adviser: Prof. Rebecca Horn) and has been active as a visual and performance artist. He has been exhibited in Europe, Peru, Japan and Mexico. In 2013 Paucar won the LARA (Latin American Roaming Art) with a residency in Manila, Philippines with the Metropolitan Museum of Manila.
Additional Information
Exhibition Opening
Wednesday 9 September 2020, 14.00–22.00
Registration required at www.berlinartweek.de/reservierung
Accompanying Events
In the context of the exhibition, ifa Gallery Berlin will present the films Der Eintänzer (1978), La Ferdinanda (1981) and Buster's Bedroom (1990).
In addition, the audiovisual workshop events Tracing Fractures, Ecologies of Listening #1 and Ecologies of Listening #2 will be held as part of ifa Gallery Berlin's outreach programme.
Details and registration at ifa-galerie-berlin(at)ifa.de
Address and Opening Hours
ifa-Galerie Berlin
Linienstraße 139/140
10115 Berlin
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 14.00 – 18.00
Closed on Mondays and bank holidays
Free admission
Berlin Art Week, 09–13 September 2020
Special opening hours 14.00–21.00
Registration required at www.berlinartweek.de/reservierung
Information on the Exhibition
Ev Fischer, +49 30.28 44 91.57, ifa-galerie-berlin(at)ifa.de
Press Contact
Guido Jansen-Recken, +49 30.28 44 91.19, presse(at)ifa.de
About ifa
ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) is Germany's oldest intermediary organisation for international cultural relations, having celebrated its centenary in 2017. It promotes a peaceful and enriching coexistence between people and cultures worldwide. ifa supports artistic and cultural exchange in exhibition, dialogue and conference programmes, and it acts as a centre of excellence for international cultural relations. It is part of a global network and relies on sustainable, long-term partnerships.
It is supported by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, the state of Baden-Württemberg and its capital Stuttgart. www.ifa.de/en