The Or Gallery Berlin is pleased to present ΔΤΧ (Delta Tau Chi) featuring the work of Jan Christensen, Pieterjan Ginckels, Jenipher Hur, Marco Schuler, Kathy Slade and Fine Art Union. The show is guest-curated by artist Håvard Pedersen as the second installment of his series of exhibitions based on North American college fraternities and sororities as understood through Hollywood film of the last four decades.

Pedersen’s initial project, The Lambda Lambda Lambda & The Omega Mu at 1612 Gallery (Vancouver), was an open-call exhibition based on the marginalized but gregarious fraternity and sorority portrayed in the 1984 comedy Revenge of the Nerds. In recognition of the “Tri-Lambs’” open acceptance policy, Pedersen eschewed the typical curatorial role of selecting artists, and adhered to a strict policy of accepting any and all artists willing to exhibit their work.

ΔΤΧ, in turn, takes its name from the 1978 comedy National Lampoon’s Animal House. The film’s protagonists are members of the similarly estranged fraternity, Delta Tau Chi (“The Deltas”), an eclectic group of misfits at odds with the oppressive and conformist campus edicts imposed by the college dean. Despite their poor social standing and tenuous agency, the Deltas ultimately (though somewhat inexplicably) triumph against conformity by a steadfast assertion of their identities and individualism, and through persistent gestures of irreverence.

The premise of this exhibition is thereby to construct a group of individuals, not unlike the original fraternity, where there exists no common thread through which to read the work. Rather than joining the artists in a unified context or shared argument, the exhibition focuses on their individual artistic approach as a notion to associate and organize freely apart from the myth of fraternal implications. Christensen’s meticulous process of painting, Hur’ infatuation towards object-narcissism or Schuler’s persistent captivation of his physical ventures illustrate the characteristics of the judicious intuition of misfits, contrary to their surrounding world of archetypal protagonists and their fellowship bound together by social class and conviction.

Or Gallery Berlin is a satellite project of Or Gallery (Vancouver), established in December 2010. ΔΤΧ marks its fourth exhibition. This project was developed during a curatorial-residency supported by Cultiva Express and Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond, Norway.

In Kooperation mit der Botschaft von Kanada/In collaboration with the Embassy of Canada