Wolfgang Oelze

Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Falckenberg Collection: April 13 to November 3, 2019

The exhibition Fuzzy Dark Spot brings together video works by mostly Hamburg-based artists ranging from the 1970s to the present day, featuring historical and contemporary productions. The exhibition examines how video in art interprets social and media irritations and manipulations.

The fields of this investigation include references in video art to television, the educational movement of the counter-public of the 1970s, as well as the use of video as a surveillance medium, a means of artistic narrative, a psychosocial mirror, and an instrument of self-optimization in the digital present. The major impact of video images on the collective memory and consciousness in the 20th and 21st centuries makes doubts about images, the uneasiness with the familiar, as well as the distrust of truth claims important subjects of artistic reflection. The title summarizes the common theme of the works in the exhibition: a nebulous, fuzzy dark spot, place, or condition. The term Fuzzy Dark Spot comes from a discussion in an internet forum about camera lenses contaminated with mold.

The exhibition, curated by the Hamburg-based video artist Wolfgang Oelze, is programmatically linked to the exhibitions Weisser Schimmel (2010) and Capitain Pamphile (2011), which offered a look at the diverse works of artists in Hamburg within the Falckenberg Collection with specific curatorial concepts.

Part of the exhibition is an extensive supporting program with artist talks, screenings and lectures in the Falckenberg Collection as well as film screenings in the Metropolis cinema. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.

Participating artists: Vito Acconci, Gabor Altorjay, John Bock, Claus Böhmler, Öyvind Fahlström, Harun Farocki, Jeanne Faust, Lee Friedlander, Gintersdorfer/Klaßen, Rosanna Graf, Britta Gröne/Peter Piller, Romeo Grünfelder, Christian Jankowski, Volko Kamensky, Naho Kawabe, Mike Kelley, Jon Kessler, Nina Könnemann, Till Krause, Vlado Kristl, Lene Markusen, Paul McCarthy, Aurelia Mihai, Ernst Mitzka, Vanessa Nica Mueller, Karina Nimmerfall, Wolfgang Oelze, Tony Oursler, Nam June Paik, Stefan Panhans Rotraut Pape/Raskin, reproducts, Rainer Korsen/Gerd Roscher, Oliver Ross, Gerhard Rühm, Swen Erik Scheuerling, Corinna Schnitt, Paul Spengemann, Hans Stützer, Mike Mandel/Larry Sultan, Inga Svala Thorsdottir, Helena Wittmann, and Steffen Zillig

In extension to the exhibition, the Falckenberg collection shows a curated video loop, the Fuzzy Sequence – presenting works by nine Hamburg artists: Goesta Diercks, Cordula Ditz, Jens Franke, Annika Kahrs, Georg Kühn, Matthias Meyer, Axel Schäffler, Eske Schlüters and Tilman Walther

https://www.deichtorhallen.de/ausstellung/fuzzy-dark-spot

Exhibition photos by Henning Rogge

exhibition in Oel-Früh Cabinet, Hamburg, on occasion of the Triennial of Photography, 2018
Exhibition views with three photos by Antje Sauer / RAL 4001

Light Box, 170 x 125 cm

take a closer look at the photo

exhibition XXII in Oel-Früh Cabinet, 2016
Exhibition views

Photographs, Installation
slide projection, two-sided trapezoidal mirror and soundtrack
Oel-Früh Cabinet, Hamburg
– one additional image appeared as exhibition invite

view the list of works

Experimental Arts International Festival, Bilbao, 2016
exhibition and performance of “Beat Box”
with Miguel A. García (guitar) and Maria Seco López (bass guitar)

2024 “Ice Cream for Crow”, Adamski Gallery, Berlin

2024 Expanded Media group exhibition at “37. Stuttgarter Filmwinter”, Stuttgart

2021 “Kleine Gesellschaft für Weg und Umweg”, Hamburg (with a.o., Peter Boué, Alexander Rischer, Michael Buck, Micha Mohr, Simon Hehemann - l.t.r.)

2020 “Der Apparat”, Frappant Gallery, Hamburg

2010 “Photography – Ideology of representation”, Gallery Melike Bilir, Hamburg

2013 “und Hamburg was glaubst du”, Kunsthaus Hamburg

2010 “Leshan Invitational Contemporary Art Exhibition”, Leshan, China (catalog excerpt)

2012 “Daemon's Dilemma”, Künstlerhaus Frise, Hamburg

2011 “Fuzzy Dark Spot”, Raum für Zweckfreiheit, Berlin *

* Supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg