Daily Business is group show at Kunstverein Siegen curated by Jennifer Cierlitza.

Daily Business
Artists: Simon Mielke, Phung-Tien Phan, Franca Scholz, Lukas Thaler
Curated by Jennifer Cierlitza
9 September - 23 October,.2022
Kunstverein Siegen

Through digital daily routines and social media, the individual domestic as well as the intimate private spheres have experienced a major shift. The private space is becoming a public stage that can be seen by everyone. The (self-)showing and being shown of (supposedly) individual space reveals a force field defined by ambivalence and breaks, which artists exploit for their work.
The exhibition Daily Business takes up fragments and atmospheric images of our times and our daily life: The boundaries between inside and outside, digital and analog, material and immaterial space are currently being dissolved and intermingled increasingly with the domestic sphere and a private everyday aesthetic.
Simon Mielke, Phung-Tien Phan, Franca Scholz and Lukas Thaler present inner images and emotions on different levels, which they relate spatially to their own bodies, their external environment as well as their living and sheltering spaces, allowing for multi-layered questions.

In Phung-Tien Phan's (*1983) video "Girl at heart", which can be seen and heard in the shop window, from both the inside and the outside, photos, videos and various musical fragments merge at a rapid pace. The footage is not cut in a linear way, the scenes blend into each other. In her videos, she deals with the question of how social media work and with what speed things happen in parallel. The sometimes shaky camera work is reminiscent of YouTube videos and gives the impression of intimacy, which is accompanied by a feeling of disorientation and aimlessness.

In Simon Mielke's (*1990) works, the media of painting and photography or film are mutually dependent. In the paintings, living space is depicted only dimly and in reduced form. The images are based on advertisements from digital real estate platforms on which vacant apartments are offered. Mielke includes technical features and common camera errors such as overexposed windows and color casts, thus referring to everyday photographic practice. A homely atmosphere is hard to imagine in the reduced space with its lack of interior design, evoking instead a sense of uncertainty in the dreary emptiness.

In her installation-based fabric objects and wall-based works, Franca Scholz (*1988) explores the performativity of language as well as the domestic environment in relation to our inner condition. She herself pins texts onto her quilted objects and fabric assemblages, as well as quotations from auto-fictional feminist literature. Incomplete sentences and repetitive codes allude to the fragility of linguistic and bodily representation, as well as passing thoughts that get lost in the hustle and bustle of everyday life in the digital age. Marks and stains litter their surfaces; puddles occasionally form into single words or phrases.

On the lower floor there is a room-sized installation by Lukas Thaler (*1989). At first glance, the installation is captivating with its whimsical playfulness, which Lukas Thaler achieves through the use of a hodgepodge of kitschy objects, various materials, and pastel colors. Whether teacups and milk jugs, lamp-like columns or sculptural seating: Thaler's objects explore the functional, aesthetic, and formal potentials of different everyday objects and their material. Ceramic cats occupy their territory, in this case the basement of Haus Seel. By incorporating domestic and everyday forms, the works often suggest usability.

The exhibition Daily Business takes up the tensions and interdependencies of everyday dynamics in the digital age, offering insights into an intimacy that is at times on public display, with glimpses of life’s banality, tristesse, and contradictions.
In doing so, the diverse artistic works create a multi-layered, insight-granting structure that illustrates the contours of everyday life and enables fresh habits of viewing and space.

Through digital daily routines and social media, the individual domestic as well as the intimate private spheres have experienced a major shift. The private space is becoming a public stage that can be seen by everyone. The (self-)showing and being shown of(supposedly) individual space reveals a force field defined by ambivalence and breaks, which artists exploit for their work.
The exhibition Daily Business takes up fragments and atmospheric images of our times and our daily life: The boundaries between inside and outside, digital and analog, material and immaterial space are currently being dissolved and intermingled increasingly with the domestic sphere and a private everyday aesthetic.
Simon Mielke, Phung-Tien Phan, Franca Scholz and Lukas Thaler present inner images and emotions on different levels, which they relate spatially to their own bodies, their external environment as well as their living and sheltering spaces, allowing for multi-layered questions.

Photo: Simon Vogel