He is widely regarded as a seminal figure-having influenced subsequent generations of artists dealing with similar questions of subculture, nostalgia, and pop culture. The consumerist spectacle of brands, products, and certain works of art often act as starting points for Leckey, with his works transforming these references into prescient and humorous reflections on our time. Broadly, his practice engages with the power of images and their manipulation, staging, and distribution in the digital age. Mark Leckey (*1964 in Birkenhead, UK) rose to prominence in the 1990s for his video works exploring British music and subcultures. The show featuring this newly acquired installation marks the first institutional solo exhibition in Germany of Berlin-based artists Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser.
As a form of artificial intelligence, Piña is able to receive and collect inherited knowledge, messages, and dreams from people around the world in order to secure their survival. The centerpiece of the exhibition is a video/virtual-reality installation (2021) of the same title, a speculative documentary that narrates the story of a spiritual medium known as Piña.
Piña, Why is the Sky Blue? is an affirming techno-feminist vision of a future in which ancestral knowledge and new technologies converge. The show seeks to express a sense of art’s utopian horizon-a generative space of desire, experimentation, and queer relationality aligned with what he described as “ecstatic time.” Featuring twenty-five works that range from early performance videos by Joan Jonas to the allegorical and animated worlds of Jacolby Satterwhite, the exhibition insists on the possibility of “something else, something better, something dawning.” The group exhibition at dawn draws connections between techniques of image production and the social and political work that goes into imagining alternatives to what the late Cuban American thinker José Esteban Muñoz called our “poisonous and insolvent” present. On 27 April, 4–10 pm, you will have the opportunity to see the new group exhibition at dawn as well as Piña, Why is the Sky Blue? byStephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser. We are pleased to celebrate with you the opening of our exhibitions at JSC Berlin.