Dead Earth, A Place of No Escape

Rachel Monosov Dead Earth, A Place of No Escape 15 September - 1 October 2023 solo exhibition & performance Curator: Jorgina Stamogianni visiting hours: Fri - Sun from 12 to 6 pm Centrum, Reuterstraße 7, 12053 Berlin The work of Rachel Monosov, poetic and rich in symbolisms, often draws on autobi- ographical references, reflecting on the artist’s personal history. The Body, crucial to Monosov’s practice, is often choreographed in the space carrying fragments of memo- ries, engraved by the discipline, the violence and the power structures that have shaped it. The artist’s background as a Soviet-era child, her family’s immigration to Israel in 1991, and her move to Europe upon reaching adulthood, fuels her focus on the relationship between body and nation-state. For her new piece, premiering at Centrum as part of Berlin Art Week 2023, Monosov threads together how geopolitical power struggle takes shape by control of land and resources, implementing nationally or racially segregated labor, manipulating loca- tions of ruins, transforming them into forests, and denying recognition of native land rights through legal means. Dead Earth, A Space of No Escape consists of a sculptural installation which is periodically activated by performative interventions choreo- graphed by the artist in collaboration with performers Camilla Brogaard, Rachell Bo Clark, and the opera singer Julia Shelkovskaia. This first iteration of a work in prog- ress, came into being after a series of workshops among the artist and performers who worked site-specifically bearing in mind the aesthetic and architectural parameters of Centrum. Referencing the opera format in her new piece, Monosov emphasizes on the performa- tivity of bodies in public space. Obedient subjects armed with rakes that look as if made of glass. Their heavy labour can bear no fruits in this absurd situation. Some- thing is sickly wrong here. There is a scent of decay. Yet they try, sweating and panting, covering all traces, so that no one could ever recognise what used to be there. The forest will cover the guilt, it will purify the loss. The labour will bond, the sweat will water the soil, it will then unquestionably be their land. Cultivating the land has been used in the past by different regimes as a practice to promote a sense of belonging upon newly occupied territories. By sowing seeds into the soil, a sense of entitlement occurs, a physical bond. Nevertheless, the performers are held by the rakes into stillness; the melody they create is a repetitive and rhythmi- cal soundtrack of an unborn Utopia. Working the land in stillness, the fragile material of the toothed crossbar renders the tool unusable, signaling that the action shall not be performed. This non-action can be seen as the artist’s statement against an ingrained status quo. Dead Earth, A Place of No Escape oscillates between the notions of being active and passive, of stillness over action, and contemplation on the ways in which we relate to the land. Questions of ownership are re-examined and seen through the prism of undoing. Passivity can sometimes be mistaken as innocence, but Monosov invites us to reflect on the responsibility that comes with being a “viewer”. A series of poems written by the artist, displayed on the supertitles screen, serve as the backbone of the dramaturgy of the piece in what can be read as a highly personal and sensitive gesture of solidarity. Performances Thu 14 September, at 19:45 & 20:45 Sat 16 September, at 16:30 & 17:30 Sun 17 September, at 16:30 & 17:30 The exhibition Dead Earth, A Place of No Escape is part of Berlin Art Week 2023 and realised with the generous support of Catinca Tabacaru Gallery. Rachel Monosov (b. 1987) lives and works in Berlin. She holds two MFAs in Filmmak- ing and Fine Art from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent, Belgium, and a BA from Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem, Israel. Monosov’s work has been includ- ed in exhibitions at Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, Kunsthaus Hamburg, Art Institute of Chicago, Palazzo delle Espozitioni in Rome, 11th Bamako Biennale, 13th Biennale of Dakar, and the Zimbabwe Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale. In 2019 she was award- ed the Praxisstipendium of German Academy Rome Villa Massimo. Her work has been acquired into the permanent collections of The Art Institute of Chicago, Block Museum at Northwestern University, and the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. Monosov is a co-founder of the CTG Collective. She is represented by Catinca Tabacaru Gallery. Performers: Camilla Brogaard, Rachell Bo Clark, and opera singer Julia Shelkovskaia