BOOK PRESENTATION, READING & TALK

On February 6, Creischer will present her book Working in the planetary surplus: Letters and songs about abundance and being superfluous, a collection of letters and poems written between 2019 and 2024.

The texts emerged during a time when climate change was no longer a prediction, but a catastrophe we could perceive every day – a paradox, because catastrophes cannot be commonplace. This contradiction also affects the routines and self-image of artistic practice, which is complicit in and driven by the production modes that create the catastrophe, while simultaneously being excluded from it as superfluous and pointless.

Some of the letters were written while working on the Potosí Archive publication in collaboration with HKW Berlin, based on Creischer’s presentation at the HKW in 2015, and followed by years of research into Baroque painting in Bolivia and Peru, tied to decolonization processes.

Creischer’s reading and presentation will complement the web of interconnections between texts and visual works that unfold in her current solo exhibition at KOW, reflecting the research-based nature of her practice. In SurSurSurplus, there are writings from Creischer’s correspondence about the “extractivist” exploitation of Latin America, about strikes at the iPhone factory, about absurd accumulations of things in the markets of the world. And there is a dialogue between Creischer and the monster—an important juncture in and highlight of the exhibition.