Exhibitions

XOO-EX OVO OMNIA 1, 2009
C-Print auf Aludibond
90 x 129 cm
Edition: 3

 

Nina Fischer / Maroan el Sani
The Communist Party Headquarters (West)
Galerie EIGEN + ART Berlin
07.11.2009 - 19.12.2009

Nina Fischer and Maroan el Sani's work is a permanent pursuit of and negotiation with the transition of time, or the transition of epochs, that has marked the very zeitgeist of our post-Cold War and global capitalist age. They explore the historic
traces of urban landmarks, monuments and events that embody such a transition. Their work critically demonstrates the rise and fall of modernity, the intense and uncanny relationship between our contemporary society and utopian projects that have driven the evolution of our history, from the past to the future, or the anachronistic merging of both ends.

The Communist Party Headquarters (West) is an ambitious series of photographic works developed to understand the complex structure of the French Communist Party (PCF) headquarters. It is a UFO-like modernist masterpiece, a beautiful and audacious symbol of communist idealism. It was designed by Oscar Niemeyer while living in exile in Paris soon after he had fled the Brazilian dictatorship. The PCF commission was started in 1965 but the building was not finished until 1980, by which time the party had dramatically decreased in popularity. Now the building is occasionally rented out to transnational corporations to stage events such as fashion shows. Fischer and el Sani explored this highly symbolic site, which reveals the legacy of its ‘utopia', its rise and fall.

Hou Hanru