AGENDA

Performance by PRICE with the musician Renato Grieco, for the finissage of the exhibition L'Air du Temps (air conditions).

Debbie Alagen (*1997) develops his artistic practice around symbols located at the interface between private and public, between mental space and the outside world. His works utilise various strategies to penetrate the unconscious gears of our mental worlds: Shifts in perception, recourse to the haptic qualities of certain materials or even the careful arrangement of a symbolism of intimacy, control or transition. In the Kunsthaus, the artist is carrying out a kind of introspection with a new installation that challenges visitors' curiosity.

The works of Sveta Mordovskaya (*1989) are mostly compositions made of simple materials that simultaneously testify to a process of dissection and fusion. They include various objects found on the street, as well as mirrors, dolls and even straw. The roughness of these assemblages evokes associations that are either affective in nature or relate to a socio-political context. The trained photographer also integrates images from her personal archive into the exhibition, which continue the problems of her sculpture in a critical and humorous way.

The paintings of Stephen Felton (*1975) are initially astonishing in their simplicity. The individual freehand drawings on large-format canvas display a reduced colour palette and testify to an obvious speed of execution. This simultaneously gestural and fragmentary work is reminiscent of children's drawings and cave paintings as well as a kind of softly drawn pictogram, somewhere between symbol and icon, figuration and abstraction. Stephen Felton's series are usually inspired by a theme or a book, the grandiloquence of which contrasts with the means the artist uses for his painting. The exhibition at the Kunsthaus thus derives its iconography from treatises on various approaches to black magic that the artist has collected over several years.

PRICE (*1986) works in the field of performance as well as visual art and superimposes different spaces in his work: theatre stage, club, catwalk or exhibition space. For the Kunsthaus, PRICE has created an olfactory installation in the large Salle Poma. The white cube, whose sterile minimalism is typical of standardised spaces (such as offices or airports), is transformed here - confronted with domestic kitsch - into an ambiguous place.  This visual permeability between the public and private spheres is reinforced by the olfactory dimension: while an industrial fan continuously emits the characteristic odour of cleaning agents and room fresheners, delicate perfumes with erotic connotations emanate from flacons, alluding to the feelings of the visitors.

Children from the age of 5 are invited to explore the exhibitions like the adults and get creative. In French and German. Without reservation, for free.

Warm invitation to the opening of the exhibitions  JIM SHAW and LORETTA FAHRENHOLZ. 17:00 Speeches, Apéro, Catering. 17:00-18:30 Children's preview: Exploring and creative activity for children aged 5 and over.

The Kunsthaus Biel is dedicating a tribute to the artist, art historian and curator Stefan Banz (1961-2021), who died in 2021. Following his last major exhibition here at the Kunsthaus in 2006, Stefan Banz, Malereien is focussing exclusively on his pictorial work and is showing around 15 paintings created between 2018 and 2021. These small-format paintings, painted in a very vibrant colour palette, reveal a number of the artist's obsessions, in particular his exploration of pictorial quotation and language. They also point to his passion for art history.

In her exhibition Champagner Galopp, Berlin-based artist Loretta Fahrenholz presents two new print series, a room installation, and the film Trash The Musical (2023). The objects, techniques and protagonists in the show perform their contextual self-awareness on different temporal levels. Historic dance groups, analog video effects, and replica jewelry rehearse and shift what was and what could be.

Since the late 1970s, Jim Shaw (*1952) has developed a complex and captivating oeuvre comprising photographs, drawings, sculptures, paintings, installations, films and musical performances. References to Pop culture, such as comics, Hollywood films and caricatures are as integral to his work as religion, entertainment culture and amateur artistic practices. His thorough investigation of the way we construct our values and convictions is accompanied by a seemingly inexhaustible visual language. Adapted from last winter's show at the MHKA (Antwerp), the exhibition focuses primarily on the artist's work of the last ten years. In addition to a dozen paintings, a selection of around 145 Study Drawings (2013-2023) offers an overview of the artist's mental landscape. The Kunsthaus has also participated in the production of the immersive installation The Electronic Monster and Thirteen Ghosts (2024). The exhibition is produced in collaboration with MHKA (Antwerp) and with the support of Gagosian.