GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Fri, 26. Aug – Sun, 20. Nov

WEIMAR
Thu, 25. Aug – 4 pm (Vernissage) | ACC Galerie Weimar

Whether it is the seduction by conspiracy theories or political promises or the typical »liaison dangereuse«, whether it is the classic seduction by drugs, the speed rush or gambling: seductions make a person or group of people do something that they actually did not intend to do. Those who seduce use fantasy and imagination to create feelings. Those who allow themselves to be seduced enjoy the attraction and being attracted. Seductions are non-violent manipulation that can become more. They release energies and desires, they put pressure on us. At six locations in Thuringia, the project takes a look at how we can be seduced – politically, personally, socially. How has each individual been seduced? What does this have to do with our home state of Thuringia and the reality of our living environment? What stories of seduction are there in this country? What do we see as the potential for seduction today and what are seductions that are not atypical for Thuringia? Doesn‘t every seduction also contain the moment of giving in, of unwanted or often unacknowledged failure? And doesn‘t a society, for the sake of its own survival, need both sides of seduction: the attraction of being seduced and of allowing oneself to be seduced?

Five solo exhibitions and one group exhibition Thuringia from 27. Aug – 11. Sep and beyond

BURGK
Sun, 28. Aug – 4 pm (Vernissage) | Burgk Castle Museum

The broad field of seduction plays a role in Kurt Grünlich’s life and work that can hardly be underestimated – not least because of its immanent and immense erotic charisma. Already in early groups of works, he negotiated the manifold varieties of his own seductions, which he, at that time a helper of the People’s Police, a night club dancer and a corpse washer, encountered, even harassed, precisely in the out of the way folds of his nocturnal activities. Aware of the exemplary nature of his abysses, he presents them in Burgk to the society far behind as a condensate of future temptations.

With artist Kurt Grünlich

FINSTERBERGEN
Sat, 27. Aug – 10 am (Vernissage) | Spießberg bob track at Hotel Berggasthof Spießberghaus

Places in the process of disappearing magically attract Kristin Wenzel on her forays through Thuringia. She translates social changes into architectural situations. Fascinated since childhood by Finsterbergen with its poetic name (What secrets does the darkness of the heights hide?), her new multimedia installation – following the KUNSTFEST contribution » The Coin 2021 « at the Herzogliches Museum Gotha – takes us deep into the Thuringian Forest: to a long-abandoned winter sports facility and its stories.

With artist Kristin Wenzel

FRIEDRICHSRODE
Sat, 27. Aug – 6 pm (Vernissage) | Kunsthof Friedrichsrode

How will the future remember its past? The artist duo VVV practices reverse archaeology, collecting an emblematic object from each house in Friedrichsrode in response to the question »Which object or its history seduces you the most?«, making a ceramic reproduction of it and burying it within (the history of) the place: a kind of time capsule, but also bait (in the sense of the etymology of »educe«, to lead astray) - the suggestion of an alternative or future past. Dania González Sanabria invites all Friedrichsrode residents to participate with objects of any kind (that evoke a story, memories, feelings) in the spatial installation Ánima (The Inner Landscape), a fabric growing through drip irrigation as an interactive archive, a micro landscape with mosses, lichens and ferns as a »sociobiotope«.

With artists Dania González Sanabria | VVV

NEUSTADT/ORLA
Sun, 28. Aug – 11 am (Vernissage) | Luther House Neustadt

Drawing on his own pool of experience, Bahram Nematipour processes deep emotions around seduction, love, hate, jealousy in installations and paintings. Contrasts and conflicts between what tradition, religion, politics and government expect of people and what actually happens in the country are familiar to Nematipour from Iran. A wanderer between worlds himself, he is familiar with the causes and consequences of refugee movements and the West‘s responsibility towards them. What Neustadt (Orla) and its marketplace have to do with all this, he shows after a dialogue with its citizens.

With artist Bahram Nematipour

SCHMALKALDEN
Sat, 27. Aug – 2 pm (Vernissage) | Otto-Müller museum of modern arts

Gökçen Dilek Acay works sometimes with textiles and embroidery, sometimes with 3D printing or sound, photography and sound, (video) installation and object on individual and collective perspectives of memory culture. During several weeks of residencies in Schmalkalden, she talks to citizens about how the workshop has changed, about biographical, historical, personal, cultural and sustainable aspects of memory, about connections to her country of origin, Turkey, and about concepts of oppression, power and the destructive aspects of human beings. Her work will look at the contrast and mutual influence between the animal in humans and the human in animals. Power and seduction are a reflection of modern society and the political structure of the raw and instinctive.

With artist Gökçen Dilek Acay