Translateral Landscapes

Landscape is still one of the main motifs in art history and a popular subject in contemporary art. Translateral Landscapes takes the artistic involvement with landscape and surrounding(s) as a starting point and questions them in terms of their spatial, aesthetic and social structures. Particular emphasis lies on the concept of the background – as an aesthetic dimension (in a picture, a room or a projection) and as a social, political and cultural scope of events. Landscape is not a mirror image of reality, but always comes with a particular configuration of the subject; pictures of landscapes focus on a specific perspective. Anne Quirynen and Hong Soun address such fragments, parts and scenes in landscapes that remain unnoticed and yet create special connections and coincidences with social, historical and cultural events. In terms of a “visual conversation” the artists invoke different perspectives and points of view on the creation of truth and reality of social landscapes.

Anne Quirynen’s work reflects the arbitrariness and the dubitative quality of digital images by addressing the historicity and perception effects of the dispositifs of visualization. The 2-channel video installation Venus Mission brings together panoramic images of a disused copper mine Rio Tinto in Spain and the astronomical exploration of the planet Mars and mirrors them until they have become indistinguishable.

Hong Soun’s work provides a collection of partial and fragmented landscapes as they show the fragments and pieces that make up the whole: objects and events that remain unnoticed, since they take place in the background or are engaged in processes of constant change. His latest work adresses pictures of the sinking ferry Sewol which capsized on April 16, 2014 near the island of Jindo, carrying 476 people.

What is the background and what is the surface of our truth and our reality? How do pictures arise in our collective memory? What role does our memory play in constructing the images of our presence and our future?

The exhibition is divided into two cycles, in which each artist will be represented with one work in the exhibition of the other artist. The dialogue is accompanied by an artist talk during Berlin Art Week.