Gegenwart. Doing Youth

Gegenwart. Doing Youth Gegenwart. Doing Youth is an ongoing exhibition and performance project curated by Lisa Klosterkötter and Elena Malzew. The projects attempts to make the fleeting phenomenon of the present somewhat more tangible in the context of an exhibition and performance project. In times of acceleration, fear of the future, and coming to terms with the past, this project aims to draw attention to expressions of experiences of present and its reception in contemporary art. To accomplish these goals, a major exhibition will be periodically hold in Hamburg. Institutions, project spaces, as well as public spaces will become the stages and venues for exhibitions, performances, workshops, a conference, and a club night. At regular intervals of three years, we want to look at the changing and transforming present – each time with a different thematic focus. In the course of the first edition, the project is dedicated to the phenomenon of youth. We understand youth to be a social place, a bundle of discursive practices, and a biographical episode in which the present manifests itself in a particularly intense way. The present (Gegenwart) is always twofold: a temporal state and what is present to us. The present finds its expression here and now. It refuses accessibility, because in the moment of reflection the present withdraws and instantaneously becomes the past. Therefore it can only be viewed reflexively and retrospectively. With a little distance and through the process of historicization it becomes clear what the present was all about, what made this present and what its potential for the future might have been. The present is the place where every change begins. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the first edition could not take place as originally planned and now consists of two parts: The prologue of the first edition took place on September 5th 2020 in Hamburg, Germany. Following this successful and well-visited start with an exhibition by Gina Fischli at Galerie Gemüse, a performance by Esben Weile Kjær at the Sankt Pauli-Elbtunnel and an Edition by Elif Saydam in an ice cream van with a contribution by Paula Erstmann, the main part of the first edition of Gegenwart. Doing Youth will take place in early summer 2021! The project is funded by the Hamburg Cultural Foundation and the Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media. For more information visit the website www.gegenwart.jetzt or follow us on Instagram @gegenwart_ and Facebook @gegenwart_.