jingchiang.net

14 Sept – 3 Oct 2007
Galerie Kulturpalast
Freienwalder Straße 20, 13359 Berlin, Germany

A work in progress exhibition from 14 Sept – 3 Oct 2007, OPEN DAILY: 4-8pm
closing reception on Friday 28 Sept 2007 at 8 p.m.
contact Kulturpalast Wedding International: (0049)-0179-215 48 47 or kulturpalast-wedding@gmx.de website: kulturpalastwedding

The exhibition also features guest artists: Nawroz Mahmud and Soran Rafat.

Concept Brief

In Berlin, the artist attended her very first day of her German course, lecturer Herr Olaf told her, “Jing! Just for your information, every noun in German language has its specific gender indication.

Der = Masculine, Die = Feminine and Das = Neutral.
eg. der Mann (man), die Frau (woman) and das Kind (child)
der Tisch (table), die Lampe (lamp), das Fenster (window)
der Monat (moon), die Sonne (sun) and das Meer (sea)

Every noun also has its plural form [i.e. der Mann - die Männer (men), die Frau - die Frauen (women), das Kind - die Kinder (children) etc.]”

The artist had her eyes wide opened and her jaw dropped. Suddenly she realised that there are countless changeable facade in the language based only on den Artikeln. Another word, she is screwed if she can’t memorised them. “What am I getting myself into?” She thought. That was the first day of her class. Well, she ended up getting herself into the birth of this exhibition.

From der Artikel on… sets the beginning of a platform to gradually discover die Artikel. In the gallery name it yourself, audience will witness the process within the 2-weeks exhibition period. Engaging with images, text, objects and the local community, the artist buries herself in the zigsaw of her experience, seeks discovery of new meanings…

*For overseas friends, From der Artikel on… will be documented daily on this website during the exhibition period.

Von den Artikeln…

Ausstellung vom 14.09.2007- 03.10.2007
Abschliessende Eröffnung am Freitag, 28.09.2007 um 20 Uhr

Assistiert wird Frau Chiang von den beiden Gastkünstlern Nawroz Mahmud and Soran Rafat.

Kulturpalast Wedding International
Freienwalder Straße 20
13359 Berlin
Kontakt: 0179-215 48 47 oder kulturpalast-wedding@gmx.de
website: kulturpalastwedding

Conzept

An Ihrem ersten Tag im Deutschunterricht in Berlin erklärte der Lehrer Herr Olaf der Künstlerin:
Jing! Nur zu deiner Information, jedes Substantiv in der Deutschen Sprache hat ein bestimmtes Geschlecht und einen eindeutigen Artikel.
Der = männlich, Die = weiblich and Das = neutral.
z.B. der Mann, die Frau und das Kind
der Tisch, die Lampe, das Fenster
der Monat, die Sonne und das Meer
Dazu kommt, dass jedes Substantiv auch eine Pluralform hat, wie der Mann - die Männer, die Frau - die Frauen, das Kind - die Kinder usw.”

Die Künstlerin starrte mit weit aufgerissenen Augen und offenen Mund auf Herrn Olaf. Auf einmal realisierte Sie, dass es unzählige variierende Facetten in dieser Sprache gab, einfach basierend auf den Artikeln. Mit anderen Worten: Sie ist verloren, wenn Sie sich dieses nicht merken kann. Auf was habe ich mich da nur eingelassen?”, dachte Sie. Und dies war Ihr erster Tag und die Geburtsstunde dieser Ausstellung.

Von den Artikeln… ist ein Prozess des langsamen Ertastens und Erfahrens, fast ein Durchdringen der Artikel. In der Gallery name it yourself, hat das Publikum die Möglichkeit den Prozesses über eine 2 wöchige Periode zu verfolgen und daran teilzuhaben.

Der Weg der Künstlerin führt über verschiedene Medien wie Images, Text, Objekte, sowie die unterschiedliche Bearbeitung der Materie bei gruppieren, demontieren, nebeneinander stellen, etikettieren, verformen und was immer noch kommen mag. Fast ertrinkend in diesem Wirrwarr des Entdeckens sucht die Künstlerin nach tieferen und neuen Bedeutungen…

Von den Artikeln… wird täglich dokumentiert.

The name Galerie Der Kulturpalast is to acknowledge the community - Kulturpalast Wedding International who initiated and supported the gallery. The gallery had held its inaugural show on the last Friday of February 2007. Since then, it holds several one-week-long exhibits monthly and its openings always fall onto the last Friday of the month.

Today is the celebration of the opening of my exhibit and the closing of my work-in-progress. Due to minor typing mistake of one of the distribution card, the show was declared open 2 hours earlier (at 6pm rather than 8pm). When our first few visitors appeared at the doorstep, I was still rushing to paste texts on the wall. It gave confusion to these visitors. At that point I hated myself being too careless at this crucial moment. I should have finished everything at least a day before. A good lesson to learn!

However, thank goodness for Henrik and Martin’s well doing, the vernissage seemed went on well at the end. Despite the bad weather, we still hold more guests than I could imagine. And, I received valuable comments and feedback.

Visitors participating on the matching gender with color.

Visitors crowded at the bar corner

More visitors dropped by after 10pm. By 12am, half of the visitors were nicely drunk (drunk with happiness and well behaved). The party finally ended near 2am…

Window display

Among all the artworks I produced in this exhibition, I like the daily changing names of the gallery the most. I find it peculiar by adding a little object each day, keeping company of the changing names. Although sometimes I felt running out of breath to come out with new name and take photo of it each day (for total of 15 days), I enjoyed the process of finding out more about the place and people.

Today it is rainy and cold. I spent most of the time finalizing the text and the overall display of the gallery. A taller ladder was brought in, so that I can hang stuff from the ceiling.

Moved Frauenwelt (Women’s world) close to entrance.

Erected Frauenwelt (Women’s world) on the tall ladder.

Hung the final piece of work.

Added die deutsche Fahne unterwegs… (the German flags on the way…)

Till now I still have no idea what picture should I used for Galerie Der Kulturpalast. I decided to extend the window display for Galerie Das Schaufenster till tomorrow evening, in order to buy myself more time thinking of a suitable photo.

Die Tretmine (the stepping mine) is refering to the doggy poo and also one of my project for this exhibit Deutschland auf der Kacke. The falling Autumn leaves show sign of the passing Summer. “When Autumn comes, the pavement will be covered fully by leaves and you wish not to step onto the hiden dog poo beneath.” Once Alex told me.

Today I was mainly clearing up some unfinished work, especially pasting the lables over the artworks. A few kids dropped by and when they left, I felt a swept of thunder storm had just passed… They were so curious of nearly everything in the gallery, asked million of questions which I mostly half understood. Luckily they only destroyed a few easily fixed items as they left…

Die deutsche Fahne unterwegs (the German flag on its way)

Last piece of work - the sofa - has done.

Relocated the bar table and the posters.

Today’s display

Freienwalder Straße 20 is a community house contains around 16 apartments. Unlike the houses in most of the big cities, which you hardly know who live beside you, the Wohngemeinschaft (housemates) here live a true community life. Read more: Experiment homes in Berlin

Three more days to go and its time to work on the final layout of the exhibit.

Little flags on the floor

Arranging the Kache pictures we did on 9 Sept: Deutschland auf der Kacke

The multinational flags echoing Deutschland auf der Kacke

Window display

Das Kopfsteinpflaster (Cobblestones) are stones that were frequently used in the pavement of early streets. Paving with cobble­stones allows a road to be heavily used all year long. It prevents the buildup of ruts often found in dirt roads and also has the additional beneficial advantage of not getting muddy in wet weather or dusty in dry weather. A disadvantage is that when compared with modern surfaces, cobble­stone paving is quite loud with carriage wheels, horse hooves and modern automobiles. (Text excerpted from Wikipedia)

Today, I spent most of the time working on the text - die Artikeln. Due to the lack of efficiency in the language, I have been pushing it off nearly since the beginning of the exhibit. Now, it is time to face the challenge…

Working on Nawroz’s laptop, which its Microsoft word drove me crazy by constantly jumping from Arabic to English to German. In the process, it rosed my curiosity about Arabic language too.

I designed a few simple riddles based on the Artikeln, hope the audience find them fun to play with.

Window display for today

Bösebrücke (Böse bridge) is the bridge we used everyday for taking the train beneath it to city or the streetcar crossing from Wedding to Prenzlauerberg. See more info: Bösebrücke

Today is a super sunny Sunday, the best weather for weeks. Thanks to the laptop from Nawroz, and a big help from Alex. Together we worked on the final layout of the exhibit and the text.

Nawroz’s laptop

Ronald dropped by on his way home…

Erected the Frauenwelt (women’s world)…

The window display for today.

Die Brandwand, or firewalls are constructed in such a way as to achieve a code-determined fire-resistance rating, thus forming part of fire compartments typical for passive fire protection. Germany demands stringent and repeated impact force testing upon “new” systems intended to be qualified for this purpose.

I was cracking my head try to fully ustilise the materials collected. Especially those little items which really challenging try to put them in use…

Thanks to Nawroz and Henrik, the heavy sofa bed had been finally moved into the gallery.

Discussion with my dear friends Martine and Fabienne.

Window display

There is a huge plot nearly where we live dedicated for Kleingartensparte. Kleingartensparte (or Allotment gardens) are characterized by a concentration in one place of a few or up to several hundreds of land parcels that are assigned to individual families. In allotment gardens, the parcels between 200 and 400 square meters, are cultivated individually, and often the plots include a shed for tools and shelter. The individual gardeners are organized in an allotment association which leases the land from the owner who may be a public, private or ecclesiastical entity, provided that it is only used for gardening (i.e. growing vegetables, fruits and flowers), but not for residential purposes. The gardeners have to pay a small membership fee to the association, and have to abide with the corresponding constitution and by-laws. On the other hand, the membership entitles them to certain democratic rights. (Text excerpts from Wikipedia) See: Kleingartensparte (Allotments gardens)

I started hanging stuff onto the washing lines today, struggling with the choice of items to be hung up there.

Having fun with the little flags in the oven…

Paste coloured papers on the back wall…

The window display today…

Galerie Der Durchsteckschlüssel dwell upon one of my first impression of Berlin - the close constraint key for our main entrance gate. See detail: The Berlin Key

There was quite a bit of activitiy in the gallery today. First Nawroz dropped in and together we tied the washing line at the center of the gallery. In our deep discussion about art and nation, Henrik came by, we jumped into action again - tearing down the artwork from previous exhibit at the back wall…

Martin came later in the late afternoon, till I left, they were still work in progress.

Gallery’s window for today