It’s Complicated, Is Possibly Art presents a selection of works by Elias Wessel that invert the digital space, playing with the seemingly non-corporeal, ephemeral, and magical forces tracking and shaping our experience. The exhibition gives visible, audible, and physical form to the orchestration behind the scenes, and the resulting fragmented, incomprehensible nature of language, individual identity, and digital communication. Can our perception of reality and ourselves really be trusted? Curated by Alina Girshovich. Including an audiowork by Natalia Kiës.
Podcast(in german)
In this episode in German, musician Natalia Kiës and photographer Elias Wessel discuss the project “It’s Complicated - Ist möglicherweise Kunst". The conversation, facilitated by Dr. Layla Zami, addresses information overflow, photography as painting, and the possibility for sound art to intervene into social media algorithms.
Video
A film by Edna Luise Biesold on behalf of 1014 New York; Director of Photography: Elias Wessel; Composer Original Music: Natalia Kiës; Text and Voiceover: Alina Girshovich; Editing: Buero Robot; Mixing: Manu Schlindwein. © 2022 the Artists and the Authors/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Photo Gallery
© 2022 EWS / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany
Elias Wessel is committed to developing new photographic concepts and procedures which culminate in abstract images that reflect contemporary discourses within society. The works function as both an important contribution to the issues of social and political development and the historical conversation between photography and painting. His current practice is focused on investigating the effects of digitization on society through the medium of photography, and the digital tools themselves. Thus, Wessel has deployed an artistic language that brings us closer to seeing what actually lies beneath the screen – whether the screen of our devices or that which keeps the world of deep tech hidden from view. As aesthetically accessible as the pictures appear, they invite the audience to examine what has been captured, and question what they know. His work uses the digital to return the viewer to the physical and face what’s plaguing our world.
Natalia Kiës has been always communicative, her main language is music: While her contemporaries mauled their flutes, melodica and glockenspiel to create some sound, four-year-old Natalia sat out of her own free will in front of the piano at home to practice classical music with childish enthusiasm. This idyll was cut off after the collapse of the Iron Curtain, as her family moved from Upper Silesia to Germany and Natalia was forced to leave her beloved piano behind. At first she was forced to take a break from her passion for music, but the urge to dedicate her life to music only grew.
Alina Girshovich is an independent curator and cultural strategist originally from Latvia, now based in New York. She works with artists, institutions, and spaces across cultures and disciplines -- from Columbia University and the arts in New York to Myanmar and Cuba. Alina is a co-founder of the art collective, Assembly Required, and holds a degree in art history and international relations from Columbia University.