04.07 - 05.08.2013 "TARANTEL 2", Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany
Lucia Ganieva, Vadim Gushchin, Elin Høyland, Thomas Sandberg

A tarantula is an arachnid from the family of wolf spiders. Signs of poisoning and St. Vitus’ dance are generally attributed to the bite of the tarantula.
TARANTEL 2 seeks its quarry among a curious public, with four artistic positions that Künstlerhaus Bethanien is setting into an international context for the very first time: their pictorial reality, remarkably promising and dangerously enticing, emphasizes a feminine side.

In a work entitled The Brothers, Elin Høyland shows photographs of brothers Harald (75) and Mathias (80) Ramen. She spent time with the two men living in rural Norway, documenting their everyday routine and fixed habits for several years. Høyland pictures the unmarried men in an intimate setting and private situations – bird-watching, hiking to the nearest supermarket, or sitting on their beds. The artist creates familiar atmospheres in her work, producing photographs reminiscent of film stills; at the same time, she captures elementary characteristics like the brothers’ isolated way of life that may seem almost unimaginable in today’s society.

Lucia Ganieva’s work is dominated by photographic portrait series showing people in their environments. Most of her works are produced in Russia, since her roots lie there and she feels a particular affinity to the Russian people and their culture. Ganieva’s series Dreaming in the Land of Birches shows photographs that were taken in the Russian region of Udmurtia. The series comprises two parts: first, the artist portrays the people and villages of the region. Their special, religious bond to nature reflects in their houses and apartments: the living rooms of the Udmurts are decorated with photo-wallpapers of fantastic images of forests, lakes or mountains, a peculiarity which Ganieva makes  into the second part of her series and thus conveys unfamiliar, mysterious worlds to the viewer.

Vadim Gushchin‘s works are a constantly changing displays of everyday objects such as pills, envelopes or fasteners, which the artist stages à la Malevich and subsequently photographs. He takes them out of their familiar contexts, somewhere on the journey from fabric to refuse dump – or to a museum, to the “sacred refuse dump of culture” – in Gushchin’s words. Viewing his photographs may prompt individual links between the consumer and consumer goods. The artist succeeds in removing a product from an alienated production process and allowing the object to develop an individual value and a personal reference for the viewer.

Thomas Sandberg began to take photographs in Ahrenshoop on the Baltic coast at the age of thirty. His black and white images show the picturesque village (advertising slogan: a place as pretty as a picture), in a state that no longer exists today. In this way he not only records facts but also creates views conveying a state of mind and spirit, capturing the irretrievable. Sandberg has portrayed neighbours no longer alive today or his own children when they were so small that they could hide in a cornfield. The artist offers private memories turned into images, knowing exactly how to immerse the viewer in a scenario or a world of emotions that appears tangible.