Durchdringen: Das U/unheimliche S/sehen

Penetrate: The U/uncanny S/seeing

The exhibition Durchdringen: Das U/unheimliche S/sehen (Penetrate: The U/uncanny S/seeing) opens as part of Berlin Art Week 2024. The show features selected works from the Kunstsammlung der Berliner Volksbank as well as works by the artist Michael Müller and other selected positions.

The two-part exhibition by artist and curator Michael Müller explores opposing pairs under the title Durchdringen: Das U/unheimliche S/sehen (Penetrate: The U/uncanny S/seeing): Abstract/Figurative, Conscious/Unconscious, Present/Absent, Visible/Invisible. What at first glance appears to be mutually exclusive is in fact interrelated and often shifts from one to the other: For example, forms and figures can be recognised in abstract works of art or what is initially unconscious can gradually move into consciousness.

While the first part, “Idols,” features works specially created by Müller for the exhibition, delving into the possibilities of the material embodiment of psychological, immaterial, and invisible processes—such as the charging of inanimate objects with meaning and significance, thus transcending the realm of visual art and entering the religious and ritualistic sphere—the second part of the exhibition, where Müller primarily acts as a curator, presents a diverse range of works by artists from the 20th and 21st centuries under the subtitle “Seeing Wants Recognising”. This will demonstrate that seeing and recognizing are inseparably linked: Every act of seeing occurs from one’s own perspective, shaped by individual psychological and physical conditions, as well as by the application of familiar models of seeing that filter what is seen and ultimately determine what one recognizes or is able to recognize at all. However, art can contribute to becoming aware of these filters by placing them in focus and questioning whether a objective or communal, a shared seeing is possible.