Mit ruhiger Stimme begleitet Gernot Wieland die Figuren und Bilder seiner Kurzfilme durch Landschaften aus Plastilin, Pappkarton und die verblichene Farbigkeit von Super-8-Streifen. Mal folgen die Worte dem Bild, mal die Bilder der Erzählung – oft scheinen jedoch beide ihrer eigenen Wege zu gehen, wenn Wieland sich oder manchmal auch eine gesamte Gesellschaft auf die psychoanalytische Couch legt. Nachdem Wielands Arbeit auf der 13. Berlin Biennale und kürzlich auch bei Phileas in Wien zu sehen war, zeigten die 72. Internationalen Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen im April zehn seiner Kurzfilme. Rainer Bellenbaum betont in seiner Besprechung dieser Werkschau unter anderem die spannungsvolle Diskrepanz zwischen Gesprochenem und Gezeigtem, zwischen Erzählung und Bildnarrativ.

Following the presentation of newly commissioned and recent sculptural work at Kunsthalle Zürich last summer, a comprehensive survey of Klara Lidén’s two decades of work took place at KW. In Berlin, where she has been based for many years, the exhibition focus was on the artist’s video works, many of which were recently shot in the city. Tampering with the urban environment and its deterministic and governing functions to which the body is subjected – themes characteristic of Lidén’s work – is a sentiment that resonates strongly in Berlin. It is precisely the cultivation of a juvenile, amateur, or outsider approach in her work that makes for its continued appeal, argues Samuel Staples in his review, thereby pointing to one of many instances where the exhibition space is opened to the city.

Seit den 1990ern wurde Katharina Wulffs Malerei, auch in dieser Zeitschrift, vielfach diskutiert, dabei allerdings eher be- und umschrieben als letztgültig ausgedeutet. Die Kunsthalle Baden-Baden widmete der Künstlerin jüngst eine Überblicksschau. Bilder aller Schaffensphasen und aktuelle skulpturale Arbeiten kumulieren zu einem Werk, dessen Motive zwischen Realismus und Unwirklichkeit changieren. In ihrer Rezension führt Inka Meißner aus, wie in der Schau „Arabesken in Arabesken“ die zeitliche Qualität von Wulffs Malerei in den Vordergrund tritt und dadurch ortsspezifische, werkimmanente und historische Bezüge in eins fallen.

The tragic death of Hilde Lynn Helphenstein, aka Jerry Gogosian, has sparked a deluge of reactions – above all, sincere expressions of respect. Magnus Resch was a regular guest on Helphenstein’s podcast Art Smack and, beyond that, was a frequent interlocutor for her despite – or perhaps precisely because of – their different approaches to engaging with the art economy. In his obituary for Helphenstein, Resch reflects on the complex yet loving relationship she had with her field and reminds us that her own art consisted of a rekindled lust for painting but also of making the art world laugh at itself.

Like other female artists of her generation, Lenke Rothman made use of personal, everyday objects in her assemblages. The techniques of stitching and binding in Rothman’s assemblages evoke, in particular, the material poems of Amelia Etlinger. Yet Rothman’s work – recently presented at the Kunstverein in Hamburg in her first survey exhibition outside Sweden – is often read primarily through the lens of Rothman having begun her artistic practice after surviving the Shoah, while its formal qualities have received comparatively less attention. In her review, Dara Jochum examines how the exhibition responds to the challenge of contextualizing Rothman’s work without allowing the reception of her biography to overshadow the work itself.

For its most recent exhibition in the US, curated by Udo Kittelmann, the Stoschek Foundation brought back to life the Variety Arts Theater in Downtown Los Angeles. Built in the 1920s in Renaissance style and used as an event location after having ceased its original operations, the building blends different eras – and thus seems like an apt choice of location for the show, which juxtaposed contemporary video works from the collection with historical silent films. As Tim Griffin highlights in his review, the almost archaeological site provided a perfect backdrop for a somewhat hauntological viewing experience, invoking a present that is poised between what is, what has been, and the uncertainty of what is yet to come.

Bruce Hainley’s response to Annette Weisser’s last letter spans a surprising spectrum, from the absurd grandeur and vamped up villains of the latest Met Gala all the way to the subtle watercolor compositions of dancers by Silke Otto-Knapp, currently exhibited in LA. Can the latter – with their light graphic lines, gestural alignments, gradual transitions, and soft grisaille – serve as an effective counterpoint to the first? “Dance just to dance,” sings Aldous Harding in “Train on the Island,” which Hainley listens to while writing to Weisser. The figures in Otto-Knapp’s drawings certainly do.

Annette Weisser and Bruce Hainley, in their correspondence published here as the column “Supertramps,” frequently reference titles by the band of the same name. Given the way the world keeps turning despite all sorts of disasters, it is particularly apt that “Crisis? What Crisis?” – the moniker of Supertramp’s fourth studio album – is now being cited by Weisser. It came to her mind when visiting the most recent Gallery Weekend Berlin, where a series of photographs by Pippa Garner elicited a bout of black humor. Taking Garner’s photos as a starting point, Weisser reflects on the omnipresence of pornography in the wake of the current patriarchal backlash – a crisis that may be going on for too long to even be called one at all.