feeling so real

In the exhibition "feeling so real", the artists explore the extent to which their own work has changed under the influence of the Russian war of aggression. In previews and retrospectives, they seek forms of expression to react to the disastrous events in their home country and to counteract them. The photographer Yana Franz is represented with two series. While in "soft kill" she looks back on Kyiv's club culture full of joie de vivre and energy, in "transformation during the ... days of war" she gives intimate insights into her personal reality of life after 24.2.2022. The day on which the Russian war of aggression took on a new dimension of violence and destruction. The artist collective MNPL and Hans Ostapenko examine the historical and visual symbolism of the Berlin Wall and place it in the context of Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine. With the object work "PО-2022", the artists develop a scenario that deals with various aspects of spatial and cultural separation and puts the necessity of protection and separation up for discussion. For over 28 years the Berlin Wall has been one of the best-known physical symbols of the so-called Iron Curtain. By far not only a symbol, but also an architectural work, it was built by a totalitarian power in order to prevent access to, or even a glance at, a different and freer world. This very curtain has once more appeared as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, though it is now very much further to the East. The object PO-2022 refers to Boris Lackmann’s ПО-2(PO-2) fence, designed in the 1970`s. This fence, with it’s relief like rhombus pattern, composed of steel concrete elements, is considered to be an icon of the soviet, post-soviet architectural landscape and can be found all over the post-soviet area, but also more and more often in popular culture and art. Lackmann himself emigrated to the USA in 1981. The wall is an instrument, tool and also partly an empty shell that receives its substantive significance from the individual usage. Such as protection and encirclement, blockade or border. Though it is always a locally emerged separation.