Dear A.S.A/P

The exhibition deals with the artistic image in times of crisis and uncertainty. Michal Helfman features attempts of settling the artistic act in frontier zones that are in constant change, by creating deserted and haunted spaces reminiscent of border controls, prison facilities and, alternately, the backstage areas in museums and theaters.

At the center of the exhibition, the video work Dear A.S.A/P relates the tale of the artist A/P 3, living in a hostile, enclosed environment, who is invited by Anne Sibylle Schwetter, curator of the Felix-Nussbaum-Haus Museum in Osnabrück, Germany, to exhibit his work in dialog with Nussbaum’s work. Like Nussbaum, who worked in hiding in Germany and Belgium during the 1930s and 1940s, A/P 3’s movement is limited, and he realizes his work through a group of exiled artists callings itself Edition of X. By fusing real and fictitious figures and narratives from the past and present, Helfman examines the option of finding a new route for creating within a limited space or a dead end.

Video