Art in the Bunkers

October 4-5, 2024 at Musikbrauerei, Berlin.

Presented in collaboration with the Kiezsalon.

Featuring Ireland 3000 and Helena Hamilton.

Curated by Nicole Beck.

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For the Irish edition of Digital in Berlin's Kiezsalon, viewers were invited to move through the Musikbrauerei’s rarely accessible bunkers to encounter site-specific installations from artists Ireland 3000 and Helena Hamilton. These works complemented the music program in the halls above, featuring the Berlin premieres of Muireann Bradley, Henry Earnest and Conor.

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Ireland 3000 reinterprets The Elevation of the Cross and The Descent from the Cross as woodblock prints, inviting viewers to reconsider their meaning, detached from their original religious context. By reimagining these works, originally by Peter Paul Rubens, he examines how Christianity has shaped perceptions of morality and spirituality.

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The Elevation of the Cross depicts the violence of the crucifixion, positioning the viewer as both witness to and collaborator in the brutality. The chaos of the scene is palpable in the faces and straining bodies of the perpetrators. In Descent from the Cross, the viewer is returned to the scene, but this time as a member of the grieving party. As the dead body is carefully lowered, the weight of subjugation and loss begins to loom.

 

For these site-specific works, Ireland 3000 experimented with scale, printing on fabric for the first time.
 

Helena Hamilton works with simple materials, transforming everyday objects to encourage subtle reflection on how the ordinary often goes unnoticed. Her site-specific sculpture With[IN] intertwines sound and light to draw attention to the functional fluorescent tube light, which here, poetically illuminates the historic bunkers of the Musikbrauerei.

Hamilton ponders how such objects fade into the background of daily life. By isolating and re-presenting them outside their usual context, she creates a gentle resistance, uncovering the magic in the mundane.
 

With[IN] pairs fluorescent tube lights with an audio piece composed from a decade’s worth of sound samples, including live recordings from previous installations, test samples, and physical interactions with the original sculpture.

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Art in the Bunkers was presented as part of the Kiezsalon, funded by Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion, and Zeitgeist Ireland 24, an initiative by Culture Ireland and the Embassy of Ireland Berlin. Presented by The Wire and taz, die tageszeitung.​