Licht Luft Scheiße

Perspectives on Ecology and Modernity – financed through the Bauhaus Today Fund

“Licht Luft Scheiße [Light Air Shit]” investigates the history of the environmental question in the 20th and 21st century in connection to current urban gardening and agricultural movements, self-sufficiency, recycling, self-construction and sustainable urban development. The project begins by asserting that the Bauhaus and its exemplary manifestation during the modernist era of the 1920s and 30s formed the cornerstone for the philosophical models, practices and the concept of “sustainability” – ideas which have been discussed in the environmental movement since the 1960s, if not earlier. Even though Walter Gropius and his successors at the Bauhaus did not demonstrate any obvious commitment to protecting the environment and its natural resources, one does find that practically all of the Bauhaus protagonists were intensely interested in biocentric positions, such as Raoul Heinrich Francé. In view of the unresolved environmental crisis in an increasingly industrialised and urbanised world, we must ask why the early holistic approaches which were conceived, developed and tested were not implemented on a much larger scale. And why are many of today’s projects and campaigns seemingly unaware of the innovations and failures of their pioneers? These are some of the questions “Licht Luft Scheiße [Light Air Shit]” examines from various artistic, scientific and political-activistic perspectives. The interdisciplinary character of the project is supported by a unique constellation of institutional partners which promises a high degree of knowledge transfer and broad public reach. The exhibition, accompanied by various events, will combine contemporary artistic works and archived materials. Based on a scaled structure – from cell to soil, plant, garden, house, city and country, all the way to circular economies and post-humanism – the exhibition shall reassess the relationship between humans and the environment and discuss its future significance. Historical points of crystallisation in the exhibition include the “biosophy” of the writer and photographer Ernst Fuhrmann and the “Sonneninsel” (Sun Island) in Seddin Lake near Berlin which Leberecht Migge and Elisabeth Elsaesser leased in 1933. The exhibition and its accompanying events will be staged at venues in Berlin, e.g. the Botanical Garden, Botanical Museum Berlin, the New Association of Visual Arts, and the Neighborhood Academy in the Prinzessinnengarten Kreuzberg, and on excursions through Berlin and its outskirts in Brandenburg.

Artistic directors: Sandra Bartoli, Marco Clausen, Silvan Linden, Åsa Sonjasdotter, Florian Wüst, Kathrin Grotz, Patricia Rahemipour


Participating artists: Marte Aas (NO), Tal Alon Mozes (IL), bankleer, Elisa T. Bertuzzo (IT/DE), Böhler & Orendt, Brett Bloom & Bonnie Fortune Bloom (US), Book & Hedén (NO), Oliver Botar (CA), Thomas Elsaesser (DE/NL), Ekhart Hahn, David Haney (US/DE), Martina Hanusová (CZ), Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison (US), Marc Herbst (US/DE), Nicolas Humbert, Michael Klein & Sasha Pirker (AT), Aglaia Konrad (AT/BE), Joachim Krausse, Susanne Kriemann, Wolfram Kunick, Merete Mattern, Joaquín Medina Warmburg, Kerstin Meyer (DE), Alessandra Ponte (CA), François Roche/New-Territories (FR/TH), Daniel Spruth, Tal Sterngast (IL/DE), Michelle Teran (CA/DE), Gitte Villesen (DK/DE), Yvonne Volkart (CH), Nicole Wolf (DE/UK)

Bauhaus Today Fund – The Bauhaus 2019 commemorative year funding programme

The Federal Cultural Foundation launched the Bauhaus Today Fund to emphasise the contemporary relevance of the ideas and methods advanced by the historical school of architecture, art and design. We invite institutions in all artistic areas to explore the significance of the Bauhaus today.

Events

No upcoming events at present

Previous events

  • 17 August, 2019 to 27 October, 2019: Exhibition

    Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Berlin

  • 16 August, 2019 to 27 October, 2019: Exhibition

    Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum, Berlin

Contact

neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst

Oranienstraße 25
10999 Berlin
www.ngbk.de (external link, opens in a new window)

 

Nachbarschaftsakademie im Prinzessinnengarten Kreuzberg

Prinzenstraße 35-38
10969 Berlin

www.nachbarschaftsakademie.org (external link, opens in a new window)

 

Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin

Königin-Luise-Straße 6-8
14195 Berlin
www.bgbm.org (external link, opens in a new window)