Series of talks and exhibitions 2024/2025

Martin Jasper, Denis Stuart Rose and Eike Berg

Denis Stuart Rose: Kleine Attentate (Erich Mühsam)

In the framework of the project From Halle to Hungary and back in 40 years

16 May 2025, Friday 7 pm
Martin Jasper in conversation with Denis Stuart Rose and Eike Berg
in German - Participation after prior registration

17-18 May 2025, Sat-Sun 1 - 6 pm
Exhibition with art works by Denis Stuart Rose and Eike Berg
Visit by appointment

Denis Stuart Rose and Eike Berg met in Braunschweig in the mid-1980s. In addition to their artistic work, both were active in the city's art scene, Rose in the KK Gallery and the BBK, Berg as co-founder of the Atelierhaus and Galerie FISCH (now Allgemeiner Konsumverein). Rose also supported his younger colleague with his experience as a craftsman, who in turn later successfully arranged contacts for him in Hungary.

At this time, Martin Jasper, as head of the cultural editorial department of the Braunschweiger Zeitung, was intensively and favourably involved in cultural life and was an extremely important institution for the independent art scene.
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Works in the exhibition

Denis Stuart Rose: Small Assassinations
2014, showcases, 25x25 cm each; found objects, cast in concrete, small videos
(image: Rudi Dutschke, Jerg Ratgeb, Rosa Luxemburg, Tilman Riemenschneider, die Gruppe Weiße Rose and Georg Elser)

The small showcases deal with the assassinations of Rudi Dutschke, Georg Elser, Wolfgang Grams, Max Hoelz, Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Ulrike Meinhof, Erich Mühsam, Benno Ohnesorg, Jerg Ratgeb, Tilman Riemenschneider, Count von Stauffenberg and the White Rose group (in alphabetical order). I call these boxes ‘small assassinations’, not only because the artworks themselves are small - rather because they are ‘not worth mentioning’ as assassinations.
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Denis Stuart Rose: Fiasco
2017, installation, approx. 200x150x80 cm; prepared birds, iron, lead, paper

The installation is a self-portrait inspired by the problems of the Hungarian writer Imre Kertész while writing his novel Fiasco. Kertész spoke of ‘crows in the head’ - an experience that Denis Stuart Rose also had in his life, and whose depiction goes beyond simple representation. Emerging crises become perceptible and reflected upon. Are the crows real in the head? Does life exist on paper, carelessly lying around?
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Eike Berg: Divers
1995, video object, 30x30x80cm; monitor, metal, glass

A head-sized monitor stands on a glass display case with the screen facing downwards. The artist's head is shown from below as it is pushed under water. Screams as he comes up for air. Divers is a metaphorical representation of power that also forces the audience to assume a predetermined, bent position.
The version ‘Divers (double)’ is part of the collection of the Ludwig Museum Budapest.
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Martin Jasper

born in Remscheid in 1958, lives and works in Braunschweig

"I began my journalistic (and literary) endeavours as a schoolboy. I wrote poems and stories, which were also published from time to time. I was editor-in-chief of a school newspaper and wrote as a freelancer for the local daily newspaper, the Remscheider Generalanzeiger - even then I wrote a lot about culture. I studied German and philosophy in Aachen and Cologne, got a traineeship at the Braunschweiger Zeitung in 1985 and soon afterwards my dream job as cultural editor. I eventually became head of the culture editorial team. My field of work was wide-ranging: art, theatre, music, cabaret, cabaret of all kinds, history, cultural politics, freelance features, commentaries - and because I found it so fulfilling, I stayed with the paper until I retired in 2024. I still write from time to time, read a lot, play chess and have reactivated my passion for oil painting." (Martin Jasper)
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Denis Stuart Rose

born 1953 in Wiesbaden, lives and works in Braunschweig.
www.denis-stuart-rose.de

Draughtsman, sculptor, realist sculptor and video and environment artist. "Realistic works of art meet the public's desire for recognition with their closeness to reality. Such realism has been part of art since Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece and essentially paved the way for modernism. Rose continues this tradition by combining object and video with convincing creative vigour. For him, welding, for example, does not just mean assembling but creating structures. Rose's works are aimed at participatory art. In this respect, they are primordially democratic. The depictions seem like the distorted image of a leaden past." (Denis Stuart Rose)
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Eike Berg

born 1966 in Halle/Saale, lives in Freising near Munich
eike.qxd8.com

At the core of Eike Berg’s works is the question of the organization and nature of human knowledge and perception. His works navigate around these semantic centers with varying conceptual approaches and different genres, including video, installation, photography, computer art, and light art. His works share a focus on the element of change, usually examining on notions of the borderline or transgressions of borders: space and time, reality and abstraction.
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Many thanks for the kind support