“… if it is good to be recognized, it is better to be welcomed, precisely because this is something we can neither earn nor deserve.” 

- Hannah Arendt, speech to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1969

Welcoming here implies the risky involvement of another in a shared space or activity or, without reference to identity, state of character, or degree of merit. To welcome someone says as much about the welcomer as the welcomed: it presents a release from the urge to transform an open space or uncertain activity into a predetermined framework or predictable process with strict boundaries to participation. This is where hospitality begins, in welcoming someone along with their insecurities, with regard to their sensitive and sensual distinctiveness, across language vocabularies, and beyond common frames of reference—and vice versa.

While Interface initially referred to a specific space, it has now come to gather a group of artists, namely Mariona Berenguer, Hannah Bohnen, Alizée Gazeau, Stefan Knauf, Linus Rauch, and Manuel Stehli. The collective formed intuitively in response to the imminent eviction from their studio spaces at Kolonnenstraße in Schöneberg when they decided to use the last months of their lease to host a dense exhibition programme with artists and performers based in Berlin and beyond. Subsequently, Interface took on a nomadic form, manifesting itself in group exhibitions with alternating participants and in versatile constellations that have journeyed so far to Polignano a Mare, Paris, and Berlin. In so doing, Interface has gradually developed a network of mutual support and impulse that continues to grow and deepen.

In their ongoing collaboration, these six artists have always maintained their distinct formal languages and material vocabularies. Heterogeneity is characteristic of the group and foundational for their artistic alliance which is predicated on mutual care as well as on criticism, on tenderness but also on tension. Beyond Interface, each artist pursues their own projects and ambitions which sometimes spring from or eventually flow into the collective. As such, Interface is living testimony to a practice of reciprocity despite differentiality and to the enduring benefits of collaborative work. 

This open and generous approach to individual artistic practices also distinguishes the composition of the exhibition versa. Each artist of the collective invited one other artist in a gesture of sharing and making space with and for each other. The six artistic duos emanate from professional as well as personal backgrounds, such as shared studio spaces and studies, common roots in remote villages, mutual admiration, and intuitive understanding. To underscore the individual artistic positions and voices gathered within this exhibition, as well as their common concerns and undercurrents, each duo was invited to react and respond to a series of questions. Thus, Interface welcomes Lucia Bachner, Toulu Hassani, Nils Köpfer, Asís María, Zazzaro Otto, and Michael Tymbios.

In many ways, Interface is both symptomatic and subversive of the changes and shifts within the city of Berlin brought about by economic pressure on urban as well as cultural infrastructures. Through their collaborative exhibition practice, the collective opens up spaces to reclaim agency and to consolidate their individual positions as artists. Ultimately, this raises the question of where artistic practice ends and where it begins. And by shifting the conditions and limits of an answer to this question, what responsibilities and labours do we thereby impose on artistic practice?

Certainly, these questions have implications for me in my role as curator, too. When collaborative exhibition practices allow artists to claim their own spaces and to self-determine the presentation and context of their works, they release themselves from the predetermined frameworks and predictable processes imposed by art institutions and galleries. Rather, I was welcomed into an open space and uncertain activity within which I take on the role of both guest and host—in best company.

Lisa Deml

Stefan Knauf, Cactus, 2021

steel, hot dip galvanized, 50x15x12 cm

VERSA, May 2022

VERSA, May 2022

Stefan Knauf, Cactus, 2021

glass, mirror, wood, velvet, 40x30 cm

Linus Rauch, per pocco, 2022

nylon, gesso, wood, 80x60 cm

Mariona Berenguer, Latin Locution, 2022

construction props, wood, leather upholstery, 300x78x20 cm

Lucia Bachner, gggfff, 2019-2022

porcelain, rubber hoses, aluminium, three to nine parts

each approx 70x50x8 cm

Tulu Hassani, Untitled, 2021

fine-lead pencil, oil on canvas, 90x70 cm

Asis Maria, 9-to-5, 2022

two wall clocks, diameter 28 cm

Michael Tymbios, Empire, Delight, 2022

oil, linen, gesso, sa pine, 24,5x27,5x2 cm

Alizée Gazeau, SW series (six drawings), 2021

acrylic and watercolour on paper, 65x50 cm each

Hannah Bohnen, FOLDS, 2022

foam plaster, from 35x46x56 cm to 45x50x60 cm

“… if it is good to be recognized, it is better to be welcomed, precisely because this is something we can neither earn nor deserve.” 

- Hannah Arendt, speech to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1969

Welcoming here implies the risky involvement of another in a shared space or activity or, without reference to identity, state of character, or degree of merit. To welcome someone says as much about the welcomer as the welcomed: it presents a release from the urge to transform an open space or uncertain activity into a predetermined framework or predictable process with strict boundaries to participation. This is where hospitality begins, in welcoming someone along with their insecurities, with regard to their sensitive and sensual distinctiveness, across language vocabularies, and beyond common frames of reference—and vice versa.

While Interface initially referred to a specific space, it has now come to gather a group of artists, namely Mariona Berenguer, Hannah Bohnen, Alizée Gazeau, Stefan Knauf, Linus Rauch, and Manuel Stehli. The collective formed intuitively in response to the imminent eviction from their studio spaces at Kolonnenstraße in Schöneberg when they decided to use the last months of their lease to host a dense exhibition programme with artists and performers based in Berlin and beyond. Subsequently, Interface took on a nomadic form, manifesting itself in group exhibitions with alternating participants and in versatile constellations that have journeyed so far to Polignano a Mare, Paris, and Berlin. In so doing, Interface has gradually developed a network of mutual support and impulse that continues to grow and deepen.

In their ongoing collaboration, these six artists have always maintained their distinct formal languages and material vocabularies. Heterogeneity is characteristic of the group and foundational for their artistic alliance which is predicated on mutual care as well as on criticism, on tenderness but also on tension. Beyond Interface, each artist pursues their own projects and ambitions which sometimes spring from or eventually flow into the collective. As such, Interface is living testimony to a practice of reciprocity despite differentiality and to the enduring benefits of collaborative work. 

This open and generous approach to individual artistic practices also distinguishes the composition of the exhibition versa. Each artist of the collective invited one other artist in a gesture of sharing and making space with and for each other. The six artistic duos emanate from professional as well as personal backgrounds, such as shared studio spaces and studies, common roots in remote villages, mutual admiration, and intuitive understanding. To underscore the individual artistic positions and voices gathered within this exhibition, as well as their common concerns and undercurrents, each duo was invited to react and respond to a series of questions. Thus, Interface welcomes Lucia Bachner, Toulu Hassani, Nils Köpfer, Asís María, Zazzaro Otto, and Michael Tymbios.

In many ways, Interface is both symptomatic and subversive of the changes and shifts within the city of Berlin brought about by economic pressure on urban as well as cultural infrastructures. Through their collaborative exhibition practice, the collective opens up spaces to reclaim agency and to consolidate their individual positions as artists. Ultimately, this raises the question of where artistic practice ends and where it begins. And by shifting the conditions and limits of an answer to this question, what responsibilities and labours do we thereby impose on artistic practice?

Certainly, these questions have implications for me in my role as curator, too. When collaborative exhibition practices allow artists to claim their own spaces and to self-determine the presentation and context of their works, they release themselves from the predetermined frameworks and predictable processes imposed by art institutions and galleries. Rather, I was welcomed into an open space and uncertain activity within which I take on the role of both guest and host—in best company.

Lisa Deml

Stefan Knauf, Cactus, 2021

steel, hot dip galvanized, 50x15x12 cm

VERSA, May 2022

VERSA, May 2022

Stefan Knauf, Cactus, 2021

glass, mirror, wood, velvet, 40x30 cm

Linus Rauch, per pocco, 2022

nylon, gesso, wood, 80x60 cm

Mariona Berenguer, Latin Locution, 2022

construction props, wood, leather upholstery, 300x78x20 cm

Lucia Bachner, gggfff, 2019-2022

porcelain, rubber hoses, aluminium, three to nine parts

each approx 70x50x8 cm

Tulu Hassani, Untitled, 2021

fine-lead pencil, oil on canvas, 90x70 cm

Asis Maria, 9-to-5, 2022

two wall clocks, diameter 28 cm

Michael Tymbios, Empire, Delight, 2022

oil, linen, gesso, sa pine, 24,5x27,5x2 cm

Alizée Gazeau, SW series (six drawings), 2021

acrylic and watercolour on paper, 65x50 cm each

Hannah Bohnen, FOLDS, 2022

foam plaster, from 35x46x56 cm to 45x50x60 cm