Book

BOOK PRESENTATION KAI

"The otherness of KAI's artworks makes us recognize the otherness in ourselves."
– Marcel René Marburger

Steel, fire and the immense beauty of the monstrous - KAI's art transports us into poetic machine worlds, into an avant-garde oeuvre of kinetic metal sculptures. Since 1983, the multimedia artist has been breathing life into technology in a creative act - KAI's metal art has become a trademark of an individual art movement. The book KAI (Cologne: Edition_, 2023), which has just been published, reveals in German and English his oeuvre of decades of metal sculpture and performance art, which has shaped the spirit of authentic Berlin avant-garde ever since and has made a lasting mark on the local art and cultural scene. Thus KAI's central position as a player in Berlin's independent scene also becomes clear, for example as a co-founder of the artist group Dead Chickens, the independent cultural house Haus Schwarzenberg and the artists' club Eschschloraque Rümschrümp, or with WERK.STATT.44 and the Dead Chickens' Monsterkabinett.

KAI's work, however, also stands for networks of artists and cultural workers that are constantly developing anew - this is precisely what the exhibition accompanying the book presentation illustrates: In the midst of his equally somber and aesthetic art, a presentation platform is developing for other artists and actors, allowing various fields such as sculpture, painting, photography, and drawing, as well as word and writing, to enter into dialogue. Special events will not only provide insights into the history of KAI's work, for example with a view to the legendary Dead Chickens, but also into central locations and production sites that have helped to shape Berlin as an art and culture location to this day.

Last but not least, the otherness in KAI's art designs its own realities, which we encounter on a direct path to our own inner selves - raw and sharp-edged, poetic and touching. Thus he transforms the neurotitan gallery into a pulsating world of aesthetic extremes that invites us to trace his art, on the aesthetically abysmal trip to ourselves.

Nicht zuletzt entwirft das Andersartige in KAIs Kunst eigene Realitäten, die uns auf direktem Wege zum eigenen Inneren begegnen – roh und scharfkantig, poetisch und berührend. So verwandelt er die Galerie neurotitan in eine pulsierende Welt ästhetischer Extreme, die dazu einlädt, seiner Kunst nachzuspüren, auf dem ästhetisch abgründigen Trip zu uns selbst.

Text: Vera Fischer

Participating artists:

KAI | Ceren Oykut | Peter Schütze | Bodo Albrand | Hugo de Carvalho | VELA | Cornelius Perino | frl.winter | Javier Moya | Henryk Weiffenbach | Horst Steel

Exhibition Program & Special Events

Saturday, 30th of September 2023, 6pm at neurotitan
Opening & Book presentation | Introduction: Prof. Dr. Marcel René Marburger
Performance: KAI, MUNSHA | Aftershowparty at Eschschloraque from 10pm

Thursday 5th October 2023, 8pm at Kino Central
Kino Central-Special DEAD CHICKENS a documentary art comedy by Malika Ziouech (16mm; 21min; S/W; 1989) | NIHIL by Uli M Schüppel (58min; S/W; 1987)

Saturday, 14th of October 2023, 6pm at neurotitan
Closing Party & Haus Schwarzenberg-Special
Lecture: Dr. Vera Fischer | Panel: Dr. Vera Fischer, KAI, Henryk Weiffenbach, Jutta Weitz, Rebecca Lilliecrona | Performance: Thomas Mahmoud, Edu Delgado Lopez, Luca Andriola
Aftershowparty at Eschschloraque from 10pm

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KAI

Graphic Design: Sandra Christine Dick

Translations: Anna Kuom & Lisa Smith

Editorial support: Dr. Vera Fischer

Editor: Prof. Dr. Marcel René Marburger

Publisher: Edition_

Printed by: druckhaus köthen

Printed in: Berlin

Release Date: 2023

ISBN 978-3-9814246-4-5

Distribution: KAI: kai@bykai.net; https://bykai.net

Köln: Edition_, 2023

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For more Information and Press Pictures please contact:

Rebecca Lilliecrona: rebecca@haus-schwarzenberg.org
Tel: 030 30 87 25 73
www.neurotitan.de | www.haus-schwarzenberg.org