Funktion Freizeit

as part of
Tipping Point, Frankfurt/M
invited by Arthur Löwen and Marlene A. Schenk
2021

as part of
No lock on the keyhole
Tobias Naering gallery, Leipzig
2022

as part of
Madeleine Effekt
Benrath castle, Dusseldorf
invited by Leonie Runte
2021

Marcel Hiller (b. 1982, Potsdam) subliminally counteracts various traces of memory of an East German infrastructure in his works. In a mixture of collaged images and readymades, he develops comprehensive spaces of experience that feed on a supposedly collective memory. Here Hiller negotiates influences between advertising, everyday life, and psychophysical materialities. The interplay of collage and spatial experience, among other things, export routes as well as intrinsic and extrinsic effects are considered and dissected. Black-and-white photographs without a clear attribution of their origin or content are formed from visual advertising material, private photo archives, or politically directed pictorial testimonies. In their interplay they move the past into a contemporary discourse. Colorful sunbeds, printed with inflatable boat motifs, carry their own incorporated history, symbolically or even iconically. Although a sun lounger seems to convey the lightness of a camping vacation, the motif, with a view to escape and oppression, recalls less happy days. In confronting a canonically remembered past, Hiller challenges viewers to critically question their perspective on the present, offering multi-layered opportunities to engage with collective memory structures.

Text: Leonie Runte