Bianca Baldi’s first German solo exhibition "Eyes in the Back of Your Head" at the Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof looks to Germany’s little-known colonial past. In particular it examines the role of technology as a colonising tool in the colony of Togo.

Of our five senses, sight stands at a strange and marked remove. Compared to touch, taste, sound and smell, sight has a claim on the force of objectivity that has continuously been reinforced throughout history. Of course, when this supposed objectivity is held under any scrutiny, we find endless examples of its inconsistency and deception. But these tend to be regarded as exceptions to the rule.

Both the man in the painting’s foreground and the diegetic painter in its background have their backs to the spectator. With some strain, the painter is turned toward the foreground figure, observing him in order to add the final touch to a canvas on which we see a representational rendition of his model also from the back! Although a straight line can be traced from the painter in the background to the figure in the foreground to the spectator, the two 180° over-turns undergone by the foreground figure, one away from the spectator he was facing and one away from the painter doing his portrait in the background, do not add up to 360° or cancel out, do not return him to his starting position: a labyrinthine circle.

Einleitungstext Publikation 'Is This Where It Ends? Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof 2011-2014'

"Dimension – weniger verstanden als die komplexe Bestimmung eines mathematischen Raums, sondern vielmehr als schieres Ausmaß und räumliche Erfassbarkeit – ist eine der zentralen architektonischen Bedingungen des Ausstellungsraums, die beständig auf das Ausstellungsmachen im Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof einwirkt und sich nicht zuletzt aus dessen historischem Entstehungskontext begründet (...)"

Christopher Kulendran Thomas’ family is from a place that no longer exists. For three decades during the Sri Lankan civil war, Eelam was self-governed as an autonomous state led by a neo-Marxist revolution. But this uprising was crushed in 2009 by an authoritarian government protected by the cloak of national sovereignty.

"Could this perhaps now be the time when an artist starts a successful high-growth tech company – on artistic and critical terms – and if so, how would their critical apparatus translate into a socioeconomic reality?" 


Jeppe Ugelvig's text on artist Christopher Kulendran Thoma’s housing startup is available at DIS magazine.

"Ziemlich genau zwei Jahre nach Ende des 2007 für den Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof entwickelten und bis Mitte 2009 umgesetzten siebenteiligen Ausstellungszyklus Reihe:Ordnung unterhalten sich Tim Voss, von dem das Konzept stammt, und Britta Peters, die mit ihm gemeinsam die sieben Folgen: Arbeit, Liebe, Geld, Sex, Macht, Freiheit und Zukunft seit 2008 realisiert hat, mit Hans-Christian Dany, dem regelmäßigsten Besucher."