We have the utmost privilege in inviting you to a most distinguished and peculiar banquet where mischievous substances will take centre stage.
Throughout the history of civilisation, luxurious substances have been consumed in pursuit of immortality, enhanced beauty or heightened strength. Yet, in a most ironical turn of events, these substances on numerous instances have come to betray their rich and powerful users, bringing paranoia, madness, or even death.
When power slips through one’s hand like sand, when greed for a colour drives one mad, when hunger for strength makes one eat poison – the spatial installation and it’s accompanying dinner-performance ‘Substance of Power’ delves into these moments of extremes and allows us commoners to take a fleeting glimpse at these most curious struggles of control and domination.
In a dimmed space, a lavish banquet is being prepared. Under soft red lights, miniatures of historical artefacts are presented next to ceramic dishes and cutlery. Some of the objects are void-black, sucking in all the light, while others are of alluring silver.
All are ready and set for the privileged guests.
The corners of the space are covered by piles of vermillion-red sand pressed into temporary sculptures representing power and force, slowly crumbling over the course of the exhibition. Glossy ceramic ‘Loose Lips’ placed in different spots of the room are whispering the table gossip and rumours about rich and powerful.
‘Substance of Power’ is Gosia Lehmann’s and Valerian Blos’ ongoing research, examining the relationship between chemical substances and different forms of power. The starting point of the work is the story of ancient Chinese emperors who swallowed quicksilver in a bid to become immortal. However, instead of reaching eternal life they fell into paranoid-depressive states caused by mercury poisoning, contributing to fatally bad decisions that influenced the fate of the whole empire.
Gosia Lehmann and Valerian Blos look into the history of substances, which were often reserved for privileged ruling classes, but eventually turned out to be corrupting for the mind – whether it’s lead used as a sweetener by the aristocrats of Ancient Rome or in make-up by the French bourgeoisie, or rumours of Putin’s acts of road rage under the influence of steroids. Decisions about a food’s availability, religious diets and what makes something an expensive delicacy are rarely up to ordinary people. Food was always a vehicle of power. When an exclusive food suddenly becomes its consumer’s end, what then?
The gallery is located at
Motor Ship HEIMATLAND
close to Fischerinsel 2
10 179 Berlin-Mitte
+49 1525 7486496
www.hosekcontemporary.com
