Horst Weierstall & Kyriaki Costa in KunstRaumGoethe

KunstRaumGoethe is the event-space and new event-series of the Goethe-Institut Cyprus, which hosts exhibitions of artists and curators of contemporary art, who are connected to Germany and Cyprus in different ways and/or deal with this in their work. Two exhibitions will be hosted from the end of February until the end of March 2020: “Buch der Gezeiten” (Book of tides) by the German artist Horst Weierstall and “Temporal Inconsistencies / Head and hand series” by the Cypriot artist Kyriaki Costa. The opening of the exhibitions will take place on 27th February 2020 at the event hall of the Goethe-Institut.

"Buch der Gezeiten" is a wall installation of paper works consisting of two parts: the “Buch der Gezeiten” (coloured drawings with acrylic and felt-tip pen, reminiscent of modern abstract art) and aphorisms (text transcriptions from diaries in 2019-2020). The basic elements of form, line and spaces in between are interrelated and, through an open, timeless structure, have the effect of a walk-in book.

The basic idea for a formal reduction in Weierstall’s works goes back to earlier actions and drawings in which the cross, circle and line functioned as form and symbol carriers. In this installation, the artist attempts to clarify the question of how boundaries, peripheries or cracks can be joined together. In 1876, Gustave Flaubert wrote in reference to literary boundaries, “Finally, I believe that form and background are two subtleties, two entities that never exist without each other.”

Horst Weierstall was born in 1944 in Wuppertal-Elberfeld and came to Cyprus in 1981, where he was the first installation artist ever to realize projects in public space. In 2010 he founded the interdisciplinary art space TheArtSpace in Düsseldorf together with his daughter, the choreographer Alexandra Weierstall. This space marks both a pivot and an obstacle between dance performance and the visual arts. Horst Weierstall lives and works in Düsseldorf.

Temporal Inconsistencies / Head and hand series
As a visual artist, Kyriaki Costa is interested in the repair of objects and the new aesthetic this creates. Through the restoration process, she intends to extract a "new perspective", looking at how a space can be reused after its repair and how its identity can be redefined following the new changes. This work by Costa could be compared to the theory of Jacques Le Goff. Trying to explain the thin line between past, present and future, Jacques Le Goff uses the example of inconsistencies in grammatical tenses and the fact that a past tense can be used as a reference to the present, or a present tense respectively as a reference to the future. This shows how malleable their relationship is and that in essence one is the creation of the other.

Kyriaki Costa was born in Nicosia, Cyprus. Her work investigates collective memory using personal narratives through ideological analyses of human significations, folkloric romanticism and conceptions of reality and imagination. Her artistic approach delves within undefined spaces in the environment and human behavior. Her work practice is a conglomeration of contemporary technological practices and traditional methods. Costa actively participates in activist initiatives in Cyprus, which focus on environmental issues as well as the commons.

Screening of short film "Marking Time"
Within the framework of the exhibition, the short film 'Marking Time' by Nicolas Iordanou and Sylvia Nicolaidou will be screened on 4th, 19th and 31st March at 19:00. The documentary 'Marking Time' stands as a poetic documentary reflecting on the practice of visual artist Horst Weierstall, who has experienced the division of Berlin and Nicosia intensively. Although his practice spans over four decades, the subjects that it dealt with, such as division, restriction of movement and segregation, are as contemporary as ever.

PLACE: Goethe-Institut Zypern, 21 Markos Drakos Ave, 1102 Nicosia
DATE&TIME OF OPENING: 27 February 2020 at 19:00
EXHIBITION DURATION: 28 February – 31 March 2020 (closed on 2nd and 25th March due to public holidays and on 28th February due to a closed workshop/conference)
OPENING HOURS: Monday-Friday 10:00-20:00
PRICE: Free Admission
INFORMATION: +357 22 674606, [email protected], www.goethe.de/cyprus