Joseph Beuys described his 1965 performance "How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare" ("Wie man den totes Hasen die Bilder erklärt") as an effort to expand the human potential for thought and expression beyond the rational. The group of artists of the 38th round of Pilotenkueche International Art Program played on a similar concept during one of their first meetings. The newly assembled group decided to choose an exhibition title through a sentence-building game in order to find a common ground for future collaboration. This resulted in "Unfinished Hase". The phrase also evokes a common motif in the visual arts, the hare being a symbol for various mythological meanings in different cultures throughout art history. One such meaning is that of "artist", a reference that added a appropriate layer to the title chosen by the artists in residence.

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Just like the hare has the ability to transform the earth into a habitat that accords with its body shape, some of the artists from the group directly communicate with nature in a creative act. Amanda Struver's installation mirrors the location in the city of Leipzig where she performs an ongoing action of digging what she calls "guts of the earth". This piece deals with topics such as society's underbelly. Its simple installation for Unfinished Hase, resembles Marloes Staal's arrangement of "stones". By using real rocks from the local landscape and molding them in ceramic, bronze or fabric in order to create copies, she is exploring the relationship between man and nature, investigating the origin of culture versus the natural landscape. The use of organic materials continues in the work of Adam Kleiner, whose sustainable vertical garden serves as a platform for stimulating social change. Visitors are encouraged to participate in the interactive work by taking a plant and, in its stead, donating to the international social movement, Extinction Rebellion.

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Relations to nature evolve into more complex structures, as the artists Atsuko Mochida, Valentine Emilia Bossert and Ludmila Hrachovinová build constructions that reflect different types of habitats. Atsuko Mochida constructs a site-specific installation by combining scaffolding, her material of choice, and a piano as an object from the venue's permanent display. The piano floats, as do the stool and even the floor. The eery uninhabited space is a precursor to work she will do this summer on a nearly uninhabited island in Japan. Valentine Emilia Bossert explores her former abodes and recreates their layouts from memory. The piece about memory and the loss thereof is based on cross sections of brain specimens. Instead of relying on stored information, Ludmila Hrachovinová invites visitors to create new pathways by entering a tent-like construction. This interaction enables a complete experience of the artwork, using kinetic responses rather than static ones.

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This creative impulse continues in imagery, where artists José Sarmiento, Henrike Pilz, Roman Bicek and Ana Castillo work primarily through the medium of drawing and painting. José Sarmiento approaches the subject of the human body by nuancing the charcoal, that enables him to pay with the balance between violence and affection present in his work. Roman Bicek's continues the theme of constatas as he focuses on humanity and technology. Nuance is replaced as he satires the potential destruction within creation. Technology continues to affect humanity in Ana Castillo's large scale collage paintings. Influenced by the images from media she collects from different magazines, she praises youth culture and diversity. Figurative painting gives way to physically active abstract painting. Henrike Pilz includes the whole body in the action of painting, using cans as brushes, letting the paint shape the landscape, modifying it slightly with few brushstrokes and including a repetitive circular motif as a metaphor for coils and treadmills.

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The use of everyday objects and non-organic materials mark the works of artists Ece Cangüden, Paul Altmann and Isabelle Kuzio. Ece Cangüden creates organic forms from non-organic materials. The installation could simulate a pattern of growth, like the pattern mushrooms often take. Paul Altmann also plays with the change of perspective by taking toy guns and melting them. They have lost the ability to enact violence, but have become the targets of it. Isabelle Kuzio offers up yet another foe that could take down humanity - advanced technology. In her world the objects we place such high value on go on to lead their own lives without us.

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The attempt to expose something that's already existing withing the image defines the works of Tomas Orrego and Charles Park. Tomás Orrego battles with our primal urges in relation to societal constrictions. His colorful cartoons draw us in. They should make us laugh, but instead they expose how our desires can imprison us. This unseen truth is something that Charles Park searches for by inverting colors in his photographs. He is interested in how being exposed to something that would normally go unnoticed can change one's perspective. Eliana Jacob's vernissage performance combines all of the concepts above. She looks at the constraints in which we place ourselves to make us attractive to others. The interaction with the collective voices of the choir show moments of individuality mixed with collective reactions of joy, laughter and pain.

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Sixteen artworks presented in the space of Alte Handelsschule come as a result of a month and a half studio work in Pilotenkueche international art program. At first working independently on their ideas, after some time, artists in residency inevitably started communicating through their artwork by intentionally or unconsciously appropriating each other's elements, thus creating a network of common motives. The wide range of topics and mediums in the exhibition offer the viewer different ways of dealing with the ever-changing reality. However, the only constant that remains during this process is the need to define the position of oneself towards nature and others.

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written by curator Tena Bakšaj

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Vernissage:  16.02.19, 19h
Performance: Eliana Jacobs and Ben Osborns

Open:  16 – 23.02.19 13 - 17 h
Location: Alte Handelsschule, Gießerstraße 75, 04229 Leipzig, Germany