The exhibition Gallery Power LTD at ChertLüdde gallery explores the relationship between power, energy, and culture through real and artificial limits. 

The exhibition is set to run for two and a half months, however, there will be a limit on the amount of power the exhibition is permitted to use. The sculptures on display will include motors and lights, which visitors can choose to turn on and off. The amount of power remaining will be displayed as a countdown timer in days, hours and minutes on an e-ink screen at the entrance/exit of the exhibition. When the energy limit has been reached, the sculptures will remain off for the remaining duration of the exhibition.   

The sculptures’ ability to ‘work’ is dependent on the energy (and power) provided by the gallery, along with the visitor’s attendance and engagement in turning them on or off. The more visitors engage, the more energy is consumed leaving later visitors with less. They will not, however, have total control. One work includes a powerful spotlight which is controlled by an external mechanism. This element throws into question who really has control, power, and energy in a cultural space as it pits personal autonomy against corporate, political, and historical decision-making bodies. 

ChertLüdde is honored to present a solo exhibition dedicated to the work of Ann Noël (b. 1944, Plymouth, UK), a British-born artist based in Berlin since the 1980s. Bearing in mind the manifold branches of subjects and interests at the core of the artist’s practice, the exhibition Einzelheiten des Lebens (Details of Life) focuses on Noël’s artistic upbringing as a graphic designer and printmaker adjacent to her connection to the city and its community. 

Central in the show is the wooden triptych Freundeskreis, dated from 1990-1991 and reexhibited in Berlin for the first time since then. Commissioned by the Berlin Senate for the Weltstattberlin exhibition inside the Alexanderplatz underground, the work consists of handwritten texts by the artist reproducing the names of people encountered, places and events that occurred in the immediate vicinity during the year of the Berlin Wall’s collapse in 1989.

The importance of this work comes from its place within a historical event that overturned global balances, as witnessed from the private and individual perspectives of the people affected. Principal to the research of Ann Noël is the social significance reflected in the intimate everyday, a notion which can be linked to her personal and artistic ties to the Fluxus movement; accordingly, her work manages seamlessly to merge the spheres of life and art with harmony and charm.

In the exhibition Chapel of Care and Rage, Marleen Rothaus (Bielefeld, 1991) creates a space for protection and organization against the harshness of historical reality. Under the watchful eyes of mother goddesses and their companions, Rothaus reconsiders how these figures’ stories have been told and retold, yesterday as well as today, to express the struggle for gender equality across geography and time.

Unfolding through a colorful, cartoonish mirage of mythical and natural elements, painted flags hanging in the space attempt to mimic a potential decomposition of sacred altar drapes. Expressing critiques of oppressive systems of power, Rothaus, an artist, feminist and social worker, repeats preexisting imagery and stories in her paintings as a way to preserve the complexity of their meaning. Directly influenced by the theories of Jineoloji, the science of the women-led Kurdish freedom movement, the crux of her work considers how resilient certain traits and characteristics are, despite being systemically erased by the patriarchal culture.

Neglected, overshadowed, and bypassed, the figures in the chapel reimagined by Rothaus have historically been subjected to a ruthless and oblique gaze. Through the triptych form, the artist confronts associations of icons that have been, to different degrees, discredited. Centering their narrative self-identification Rothaus reconsiders them as worthy of worship, advocating for an elevated and multifaceted representation. Moreover, she presents them in solidarity with other icons, plants, and wild animals. This cluster, like the weeds reproduced in Rothaus’ work, portrays the characters as recurring beings capable of communal healing and self-defense.