Michael Stevenson, Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle, 2020/21. Installation view of the exhibition Michael Stevenson Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin 2021. Courtesy the artist, Michael Lett Gallery, Auckland, and Fine Arts, Sydney; Photo: Andrea Rossetti
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Join Michael Lett for an online walk-through with Michael Stevenson of his survey exhibition Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief currently on at KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin.
This discussion will take place online via Zoom. Join here for this free event.
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The exhibition Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief by the Berlin-based artist Michael Stevenson (born 1964 in NZ) presents an unconventional survey of his practice over the past 35 years. Since the 1980s, Stevenson has developed an artistic language that operates at the juncture of economy, technology, education, and faith, exploring the infrastructural systems that underpin these disciplines. Here, early works are encountered alongside more recent large-scale installations and new commissions. Over the years the artist has adopted an anachronistic approach to his own practice, whereby fragmentation becomes a default mode to revisit older bodies of work, transforming the gallery into something akin to the boneyards of industry. The way in which the first five gallery spaces of the exhibition can be navigated was developed through analogy—that of a great fish or a whale’s digestive tract. In this way, architecture becomes anatomy and, by extension, the exhibits become studies in entrails. Provided with insights from the belly of our constructed world, Stevenson’s exhibition raises awareness that disproving rational theories does not automatically and irrevocably equal disbelief.
Join Michael Lett for an online walk-through with Michael Stevenson of his survey exhibition Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief currently on at KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin.
This discussion will take place online via Zoom. Join here for this free event.
––––––––––––––––––––––––––
The exhibition Disproof Does Not Equal Disbelief by the Berlin-based artist Michael Stevenson (born 1964 in NZ) presents an unconventional survey of his practice over the past 35 years. Since the 1980s, Stevenson has developed an artistic language that operates at the juncture of economy, technology, education, and faith, exploring the infrastructural systems that underpin these disciplines. Here, early works are encountered alongside more recent large-scale installations and new commissions. Over the years the artist has adopted an anachronistic approach to his own practice, whereby fragmentation becomes a default mode to revisit older bodies of work, transforming the gallery into something akin to the boneyards of industry. The way in which the first five gallery spaces of the exhibition can be navigated was developed through analogy—that of a great fish or a whale’s digestive tract. In this way, architecture becomes anatomy and, by extension, the exhibits become studies in entrails. Provided with insights from the belly of our constructed world, Stevenson’s exhibition raises awareness that disproving rational theories does not automatically and irrevocably equal disbelief.