September 16 to November 7, 2018
Potsdamer Str. 97, 10785 Berlin

Originally conceived in 2006, Dan Peterman’s sculpture and performance work Love Podium testifies to the myriad forms and circuits through which democracy takes shape. In a time when the struggle between right and leftist politics has returned to Europe with grave consequences, Peterman’s political playfulness can be understood as a welcoming antidote, to virulent political tribalism.
The first iteration of Love Podium comprised two speech podiums, arranged in opposite directions on a platform, and constructed from planks of recycled plastic. When visitors assumed these oppositional positions and began speaking, a literally conflicted discourse ensued, with their words clashing and rhyming unpredictably. As with the current version of Love Podium – wherein artists and musicians have taken the role of speakers – this socially activated sculpture produced a condensed echo of democracy’s actual character: spirited and conflicted, confused and harmonious.

Above all, Love Podium is a work of art that – as opposed to traditional forms of propaganda or pedagogy – foregoes prescriptions for political thought or action. Instead, it lends evocative form to the ever contingent nature of democracy itself. The work’s recycled material gives political resonance to the relationship between form and content, by which the piece is anchored in an ethos of modern sculpture. Any attempt at politics, this material implicitly suggests, must comprehend the ecological concerns upon which society itself rests. Equally important, is how the dense, ultra-resilient plastic serves the work’s physical behaviour, enabling its perfomative space to be relocated and re-imagined in perpetuity. The current iteration of Love Podium places further emphasis on this function. It is built from small, custom produced crates, that can be used as furniture within inventive configurations, or to ship small works of art. In this way, the work’s innate politics are drawn into literal channels of distribution and exchange.

The inclusion of artists in Love Podium signals the renewed importance of revisiting art’s – but not dictating – art’s relationship to the social field. Bolstering a wider conversation about where we find the boundaries of politics, these artists’ contributions range from the ambiguously to overtly political. Participants include Mareike Begner, Kasia Fudakowski, Annika Kahrs,Wilhelm Klotzek, The Performance Agency and Eric Winkler.

In late September, at the Art Berlin fair, Peterman’s work Accessories to an Event, which comprises platforms and benches again made from recycled plastic, will be shown alongside a project from Wilhelm Klotzek, that creates reliefs of Imbiss snack huts which are unexpected and unpredictable sites of social exchange, in German cities. In this way, Peterman’s work becomes implicated in an ongoing and crucial conversation, which seeks to elaborate our understanding of how political space, like art itself, can be imagined. (Text by Mitch Speed)

For all enquiries, please contact Alfons Klosterfelde at office@helgamariaklosterfelde.de.
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For art berlin 2018, Klosterfelde Edition presented for the first time works by Wilhelm Klotzek, in dialogue with an installation by Dan Peterman.
If the latter represents an ongoing, intensive engagement with ecological and (socio-) economic issues since the 1980s—manifested in the creation of a long- term, alternative project on Chicago’s Southside simply referred to for a long time as The Building, as well as material-based, conceptual installations, and other works—Klotzek is best known for his quirky sculptures, videos, and performances, interspersed with sound poetry and word jugglings, in which he takes up everyday cultural or even political-historical phenomena.

Both pursue a sustained sculptural practice whose quality is strongly characterized by a precise application of the materials employed. Peterman’s style-defining, reprocessed post-consumer plastic, i.e. plastic that has been re-melted after consumer use and molded into massive boards or beams, which the artist obtained from a recycling company experimenting with this material, forms the basis of the Accessories to an Event work series, which began in 1996. This series was also part of his contribution to the 2nd Berlin Biennale in 2001 (61st Street Bottlecap Pasta), while another version, Accessory to an Event (plaza) from 1998, was recently reinstalled in front of the MCA in Chicago. The material’s various color shades result from the random composition of recycled plastics; the weight of the modules always references the annual consumption of plastic by consumers in a particular context. The small pallets and benches offer infinitely possible variations: spread out as a durable floor covering or piled high as a shelf or minimal wall sculpture, they are adapted to any spatial situation and functional use. But it is the awareness of the energy stored in them, the endless transformative potential inherent to the plastic material, and its problematic sustainability that account for the timeless quality and special presence of these works.

Wilhelm Klotzek’s wall reliefs Imbiss (1-4), by comparison, seem literally wrested from their functionality: fragments of replicas of Schnellbüfetts (fast-food spots) created from sheet metal, inspired by actual examples from the Naschmarkt in Vienna or Alexanderplatz in Berlin, push to the extreme the minimalism of these small architectural forms that are already stripped down to the bare essentials—a closed shutter, the intimation of a frosted glass window as a privacy screen that Helga Maria Klosterfelde Edition graciously conceals what is fried and cooked here, or the small protuberance for hungry patrons to lean against, are enough of a suggestion for identifying the objects that at first glance seem like abstract mural reliefs. Similar façade fragments are familiar from major construction sites, when a module in the form of a 1:1 model is installed in order to test out the original materials under actual weather conditions. Klotzek’s reliefs, however, neither serve such a functional visualization for future use nor are they the actual remnants of existing architectures—instead one might call them sculptural and slightly abstracted memory markers.

Feierlicher Abriss der Brücke zur Eintracht, Regionale Schattierungen der Motte, and 12. Berliner Briefmarkenausstellung (Festive Demolition of the Unity Bridge, Regional Shades of the Moth and the 12th Berlin Stamp Exhibition): the three enamel signs designed by Klotzek evidently serve the purpose of communicating information in public space—directed toward highly specialized experts or generally interested citizens. Classifying them temporally is not really possible, even if the typography or a venue like the Kulturhaus Peter Edel, which has been vacant for ten years, may intimate this. As informational panels of natural history (with geopoetical surplus value) or announcements of permanent potential events, they, like the snack bars, are indices of a subjective present.

By contrast, Peterman’s post-consumer plastic incorporates fragments of our collective past as consumers into a material presence that can exist as a performative infrastructure as well as an autonomous work of art. Both artistic positions open up fragmentary glimpses into food chains, energy cycles, and the waste material associated with them—the body of the ultimate consumer leaning on a snack bar counter or standing like cargo on a platform of pallets.

Text by Bettina Klein
Translation by Erik Smith

February 26 to April 23, 2016
Potsdamer Str. 97, 10785 Berlin

Accessoires to an Event, 1996

1 table (dim.), 10 floor pallets (dim.), 2 floor pallets (dim.)
Post-consumer plastic material
Signed and numbered certificate
Unlimited Edition

Aeral view of 6100 Blackstone building, Chicago, 1998

C-print
50 x 40 cm
Edition of 3

The greenhouse series, 2001

18 C-prints 29 x 37cm
Framed
Unique

First Tool Board (Bike Shop), 1999

20-by-24 Polaroids
Two parts, overall 76 x 114 cm
Framed
Edition of 5

Monk Parakeet (Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois), 1997

Color photography
19,9 x 30 cm
Signed and numbered certificate
Edition of 9

Electric Vehicle (Chicago, Illinois), 1997

Color photography
30 x 19,9 cm
Signed and numbered
Edition of 3

News Stand (Chicago, Illinois), 1997

Color photography
30 x 19,9 cm
Signed and numbered
Edition of 3

The greenhouse series (self portrait), 2001

2 C-prints 29 x 37cm
Framed
Unique

Viewing room, left to right:

Matthew Antezzo

Artforum, December 1972, p.32, 1991
Oil on canvas
31,75 x 35,56 cm
Unique

Jonas Lipps

Rucksack, 2012
Backpack, paper, latex
Ca. 50 x 30 x 20 cm
Edition of 7

Lawrence Weiner

Wir sind keine Enten auf dem Teich Wir sind Schiffe auf dem Meer, 1990
(Sculpture for Hamburg Project)
14-colour silk-screen print
On Bristol cardboard 250g
53,5 x 70,5 cm
Printer: Thomas Sanmann, Hamburg
Signed and numbered
Edition of 30

John Baldessari

Heaven & Hell, 1988
Diptych: aquatint, scraping, roulette, and photogravure on two sheets of paper
120 x 80 cm each
Edition of 45
Framed

Matt Mullican

Untitled (Truth and Beauty), 2009
Portfolio of 8 etchings
Each 47,5 x 38,5 cm in custom made folder
Edition of 16

Kay Rosen

Hi, 1997-1998/2011
Silkscreen Print on Zerkall Bütten 300g
92 x 42 cm
Printer: Holger Hinze, Hamburg
Edition of 25

Thomas Bayrle

Marathon, 1969
Color serigraph on cardboard
49 x 69 cm
Signed and numbered
Edition 40 of 100

Matthew Antezzo

Artforum, December 1972, p.32, 1991

Although Dan Peterman’s work draws on the artistic vocabulary of Minimalism, it offers a very different message conceptually. His reduced formal language in fact opposes the early strategies of minimalism as he mostly uses recycled materials. The objects themselves symbolise the inexhaustible store of energy and material and the potential for continually new forms and functions through recycling.

This continuous process of changing states, a theme often revisited by the artist, is represented in the other photographic works on show in the gallery’s second room. The photo prints of ‚The greenhouse series’ in 2001 originally served as a documentation for reconstructing a greenhouse. Caused by a fire in Peterman’s studio, the surface of these prints and of the diptych of his self-portrait was partly dissolved. ,Aeral view of 6100 Blackstone building, Chicago’, 1998 in the front room shows the whole building before it was completely destroyed during that fire. Here Peterman initiated and housed several community projects like a bike repair shop, a swap shop, the office of the magazine ‚The Baffler’ and a self-sufficiency garden. The subject of the actual size polaroid ‚First Tool Board (Bike Shop)’, 1999 refers to that and demonstrates a characteristical storage system of a shared workshop space.

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September 10 to November 12, 2011
Potsdamer Str. 97, 10785 Berlin

Helga Maria Klosterfelde Edition is pleased to present The Granary (Series) by Dan Peterman:

Dan Peterman
The Granary Series, 2011
Granary Models made from recycled Plastic Material
Each ca. 36 x 45 x 21 cm
Signed and Numbered Certificate
Unlimited Series

The form and scale of these granaries mimic ceramic models comes from the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). These ceramic models were known as ‚mingqi’ and were originally produced as funerary items intended for the dead to use in the afterlife. Mingqi translates roughly into ‚spirit objects’. They depicted objects used in daily life like stoves, latrines, houses and agricultural buildings. Granaries figured prominently among them as they “guaranteed continued affluence for the deceased in the afterlife.” 1

Two thousand years later, these miniature granaries provoke questions related to contemporary food production systems and food security. We live at a time of increased ecological instability and severe challenges to our ability to sustainably feed a global human population of nearly seven billion. We also live in an age defined by our dependence on petroleum and at an historically significant moment of ‚peak oil,’ where diminishing discoveries of new petroleum sources, and severe consequences of excessive atmospheric carbon emissions pressure us toward new technologies and new strategies for meeting basic needs. It is a compelling moment to contemplate our transition to post-petroleum living and a compelling moment to consider our strategies for feeding everyone who continues to show up at the dinner table.

The Han period is known for innovative modular production methods—ceramic production included. This granary series however, while borrowing from these modular methods, is made of post-consumer plastics. The color variation comes from the random mixing of plastics during its re-manufacture. While following a repeated production template, each granary—as with Han production—is unique in detail. Additionally, much of this plastic is twice recycled having been previously used in a public sculpture Ground Cover, also by Peterman, that continues to function as an open-air public dancefloor in Chicago. Replaced plastic floor boards showing signs of excessive wear—many having been danced upon for 15 years—serve as primary material stock for producing these granaries. This plastic material, recognizable in many of Peterman’s projects, serves as a petro-chemical marker of the peak oil moment we are living in. As with all plastics these objects are capable of spanning centuries, and being unearthed, like ceramic, bronze and stone artifacts, thousands of years in the future—carrying with them a resonant link between a long gone agrarian culture and our current ecological dilemmas.

(1) Quinghua Guo, The Mingqi Pottery Buildings of Han Dynasty China 206 BC – 220 AD, Sussex Academic Press 2010)

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“x-headed nails”,1990/2009
biodegradeable nails
ca. 3,9 cm x 0,3 cm
edition: 10, I, I
each edition consiting of 50 nails

“nailless benches”, 2009
benches made of recycled plastic material
each 25 x 25,5 x 14 cm
edition: 14, I, I

Photos: Nick Ash

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Matthew Antezzo

New Government, Akwesasne Notes, 1975, 2002
pencil and graphite on paper
14.76 x 17.32 inches
37.5 x 44 cm

Cady Noland

o.T., 1994
ink on aluminium
39.2 x 33.2 cm

Dan Peterman

One Ton Sulfur Dioxine Emission Allowance, 1993
offset print on paper
21,5 x 28 cm

Kay Rosen

Mistake, 1995/96
sign paint on museum purpose cardboard
40 x 72,39 cm

Kay Rosen

Grayv Train, 2008
Enamel sign paint on canvas
30,5 x 45,7 cm