HOT POTATO

It’s been a long time since an artist was last swallowed whole by a bear in this city – twenty-two years, to be precise. That was, of course, a very different Berlin: one in which glass cages were still relatively transparent, one not yet shrouded in the fog of Staatsräson.

Once upon a time, bears roamed Berlin’s commons freely – despite being known, every now and again, to nibble on the hands of those who fed them. Bear traps were few and far between. A bear could bust its moves without fear of being pushed to the city outskirts as a threat to public safety. The sustenance of bears had yet to become contingent on dancing to the tune of their keepers.

Hot potatoes have been thick on the ground in Berlin in recent years. Germany’s capital features prominently in this solo presentation by Candice Breitz, her first as a German citizen.

The exhibition is a reckoning of sorts, an angry yet passionate love letter to the city that Breitz moved to for the same reasons as so many other artists at the turn of the century, which has – in recent years – seen its cultural capital recklessly squandered by politicians and bureaucrats wielding punitive exclusionary measures, anti-constitutional litmus tests, illiberal codes of conduct and damaging funding cuts. As calls to untether art from politics proliferate in Germany and beyond, Hot Potato traces the historically fraught relationship between artists and the authorities that preside over them – by means of a series of appropriative homages.

The history of art is abundant with artists who have, in one way or another, created space for political and ethical reflection within their creative practice. Breitz pays tribute to some of them in this exhibition – evoking, borrowing, reproducing and reanimating earlier works and performances by artists and musicians as diverse as Renée Sintenis, Esther Bejarano, John Baldessari, Félix González-Torres, Mark Wallinger and Christoph Schlingensief, with varying degrees of reverence.

Berlin’s heraldic animal, the bear, looms large in Hot Potato. The show is teeming with them: A bear that once haunted the Neue Nationalgalerie emerges from two decades of hibernation to dance for its keep in the gallery’s modest storefront. Wounded bronze bears freshly rescued from the Noack Foundry, find refuge in glass vitrines – having been judged unfit to enter service alongside their more glamorous siblings on the trophies awarded annually at Berlin’s International Film Festival. In a work titled Codes of Conduct – which wryly rehearses anticipatory obedience – the artist promises not to “poke the bear.”

In observance of current trends, Breitz has distilled a new shade of brown for use in the exhibition. Staatsräsonbraun – a colour mixed in equal parts from black, red and gold – is a key ingredient both of Implicated Colours and the Anagram paintings.

A series of Appropriated Posters will be available for purchase at accessible prices throughout the exhibition. All income generated from sales will be donated to Medico International’s emergency fund for communities facing devastation in Gaza and the West Bank.

Lastly, don’t miss A Song for Esther, the conceptual concert that will play for two consecutive nights at the Hebbel am Ufer (HAU1) on 6 + 7 June, parallel to Hot Potato. An extraordinary line-up of musicians will join Breitz on stage to pay tribute to the late musician and antifascist activist Esther Bejarano, a century after her birth.