How can a book represent twenty years of artistic production—happenings, site-specific installations, concerts, or the sound of self-playing instruments?
spiritus, the first comprehensive publication by the Berlin-based artist group Honey-Suckle Company, contains—as the title implies—the “spirit” of the group transferred to the medium of the book. Consisting of six core members from the fields of fashion design, architecture, sculpture, photography, homeopathy, and music, working together under a single name and as part of numerous collaborations, the group has produced large-scale installations and settings for happenings in international institutions such as KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (1st Berlin Biennale, 1998), PS1 New York (Children of Berlin, 1999), Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (Eswerde, 2003), Cubitt Gallery, London (OHN END, 2003), or Kunsthalle Basel (NON EST HIC, 2006).
Since its inception, the group has documented its fashion collections, installations, happenings, and concerts in photos. This has generated not only an independent photographic body of work, but also an impressive document of the Berlin scene since the nineties. In post-unification years, the group was initially active in subcultural Berlin far away from the art world, exerting its influence on the scene and the city’s nightlife in connection with Punk, New Wave, and Sun Ra. With its band Batterie ON/OFF, it organized happenings and concerts in venues like Suicide Club, Eimer, and Friseur. The group was also part of the legendary galerie berlintokyo (1995-99) on Hackescher Markt. In the exhibitions and actions that followed, the group created complex spatial installations that became more and more reduced, disintegrating the tangible work of art into a white nothingness in their last solo exhibition to date, Materia Prima (Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, 2007).
While their works reference the styles and motifs of different artistic and spiritual movements from the Bauhaus, the Russian avant-garde, to the Lebensreform movement, the group deliberately rejects all forms of nostalgia, prescribing instead “the use of honeysuckle, a Bach Flower remedy [...] for treating disorders related to a sense of reality disconnection, escapism, a lack of interest in the present, melancholy, and feelings of nostalgia.”
spiritus, the first comprehensive publication by the Berlin-based artist group Honey-Suckle Company, contains—as the title implies—the “spirit” of the group transferred to the medium of the book. Consisting of six core members from the fields of fashion design, architecture, sculpture, photography, homeopathy, and music, working together under a single name and as part of numerous collaborations, the group has produced large-scale installations and settings for happenings in international institutions such as KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (1st Berlin Biennale, 1998), PS1 New York (Children of Berlin, 1999), Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (Eswerde, 2003), Cubitt Gallery, London (OHN END, 2003), or Kunsthalle Basel (NON EST HIC, 2006).
Since its inception, the group has documented its fashion collections, installations, happenings, and concerts in photos. This has generated not only an independent photographic body of work, but also an impressive document of the Berlin scene since the nineties. In post-unification years, the group was initially active in subcultural Berlin far away from the art world, exerting its influence on the scene and the city’s nightlife in connection with Punk, New Wave, and Sun Ra. With its band Batterie ON/OFF, it organized happenings and concerts in venues like Suicide Club, Eimer, and Friseur. The group was also part of the legendary galerie berlintokyo (1995-99) on Hackescher Markt. In the exhibitions and actions that followed, the group created complex spatial installations that became more and more reduced, disintegrating the tangible work of art into a white nothingness in their last solo exhibition to date, Materia Prima (Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, 2007).
While their works reference the styles and motifs of different artistic and spiritual movements from the Bauhaus, the Russian avant-garde, to the Lebensreform movement, the group deliberately rejects all forms of nostalgia, prescribing instead “the use of honeysuckle, a Bach Flower remedy [...] for treating disorders related to a sense of reality disconnection, escapism, a lack of interest in the present, melancholy, and feelings of nostalgia.”
The installation Das Buch (The Book) at the Galerie für Moderne Fotografie is not intended as a simple presentation of individual photographs from the spiritus publication. Here, the artists have transformed the very medium of the book into an exhibition and present some of their most important works in a manner reflecting this motif. For OHN END (Cubitt Gallery, London, 2005) and NON EST HIC (Kunsthalle Basel, 2006) large-scale, textile based sculptures were produced with integrated, hidden laser speakers. Each member of the group added pure tones or sine wave tones in the studio under the instruction of musician Konrad Sprenger.
The breathing of the absent choir could also be heard over and over, which detected the listening visitors in the space selectively and randomly.
NON EST HIC, Latin for “he/she/it is not here” or “nothing is here” is also the title of a record, which appeared in the context of the exhibition, featuring pure tones or sine wave tones compositions made in collaboration with Konrad Sprenger. Sound and music are an elementary aspect of Honey-Suckle Company’s artistic practice. The group enlisted several of their friends to perform their noise, punk, and psychedelic concerts of the nineties. For their work NEUBAND (2000), they ultimately developed an ensemble of self-playing musical instruments. Based on a constructivist drawing by Kasimir Malevich, they designed objects and wardrobe items for their mechanical band whose compositions are reminiscent of Krautrock. The guitarist is part of the exhibition Das Buch as a band representative.
In conjunction with the exhibition Das Buch, the Galerie für Moderne Fotografie is pleased to present the artists monograph spiritus for the first time. Released in June by Berlin-based Bierke Verlag, it combines, in addition to photographic documentation, material from the artists’ archive, newspaper clippings, and texts by authors like Abel Auer, Philipp Ekardt, Lina Launhardt, Tim Voss, and Lilly Wittenburg. The Honey-Suckle Company currently consists of the following members: Simone Gilges, Peter Kisur, Nina Rhode and Nico Ihlein.
The artists’ book spiritus is available at the gallery for €38; a special edition with a signed print is also available.
Text: Isabelle Busch
The breathing of the absent choir could also be heard over and over, which detected the listening visitors in the space selectively and randomly.
NON EST HIC, Latin for “he/she/it is not here” or “nothing is here” is also the title of a record, which appeared in the context of the exhibition, featuring pure tones or sine wave tones compositions made in collaboration with Konrad Sprenger. Sound and music are an elementary aspect of Honey-Suckle Company’s artistic practice. The group enlisted several of their friends to perform their noise, punk, and psychedelic concerts of the nineties. For their work NEUBAND (2000), they ultimately developed an ensemble of self-playing musical instruments. Based on a constructivist drawing by Kasimir Malevich, they designed objects and wardrobe items for their mechanical band whose compositions are reminiscent of Krautrock. The guitarist is part of the exhibition Das Buch as a band representative.
In conjunction with the exhibition Das Buch, the Galerie für Moderne Fotografie is pleased to present the artists monograph spiritus for the first time. Released in June by Berlin-based Bierke Verlag, it combines, in addition to photographic documentation, material from the artists’ archive, newspaper clippings, and texts by authors like Abel Auer, Philipp Ekardt, Lina Launhardt, Tim Voss, and Lilly Wittenburg. The Honey-Suckle Company currently consists of the following members: Simone Gilges, Peter Kisur, Nina Rhode and Nico Ihlein.
The artists’ book spiritus is available at the gallery for €38; a special edition with a signed print is also available.
Text: Isabelle Busch
