Unlock Life, 2022
C-print, laminated on AluDibond
Frame: Smoked oak, ArtGlass AR70 2mm
Sheet size (H x W): 64.2 x 90.2 cm
Frame size (H x W): 66.0 x 92.0 cm
Ed. 1/3 (+1AP)
Lot number 03
Minimum bid: 1.200,- EUR / Estimate: 2.500,- to 3.000,- EUR
Aram Bartholl
- Über das Werk: On the bottom of Berlin's Nordhafen Canal lies a rental bicycle submerged in the water, which, covered by algae, is only recognizable upon a second glance. The title "Unlock Life" is ironic, alluding to the advertising slogan of a well-known bicycle startup, which suggests that renting a bicycle offers freedom and quality of life. However, in this portrayal, the darker side of this promise is highlighted. Instead of freedom, we see the bicycle in a state of decay and neglect, submerged in the depths of the Nordhafen Canal and overgrown with algae – a symbol of the often fleeting promise of modern technologies and business models.
- Aram Bartholl
- Aram Bartholl uses sculptural interventions, installations, and performative workshops to question our engagement with media and with public economies linked to social networks, online platforms, and digital dissemination strategies. He addresses socially relevant topics, including surveillance, data privacy and technology dependence, through his work by transferring the gaps, contradictions, and absurdities of our everyday digital lives to physical settings. The effect is twofold. The works create an at-times bizarre confrontation with our own ignorance of globally active platform capitalism, and they renegotiate network activities as political forms of participation on an analog level using the potential of public space. Bartholl thus initiates a performative process to catalyze a renewed understanding of individual action within a collective and self-determined network discourse.
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Conceptually and technically, he uses the same aesthetics, codes, and communication patterns that users are familiar with from YouTube, Instagram, and video games. A purposeful contextualization employs the logic of the Internet while at the same time undermining it with individual strategies. Bartholl has andeln. exhibited at MoMA Museum of Modern Art NY, Skulptur Projekte Münster, Palais de Tokyo, Hamburger Bahnhof, Seoul Museum of Art and the Thailand Biennale among other as well as conducting countless workshops, talks and performances internationally. Aram Bartholl is a professor for art with digital media at HAW Hamburg, he lives and works in Berlin.
