Or Gallery Berlin presents two new exhibitions opening June 10, both of which employ subtle alterations and superimpositions to work against a simple understanding of the picture.

Hadley+Maxwell’s …Um (2006) is a video of nearly 11 minutes in length depicting a light bulb on the end of a simple short black cord. Playing out a kind of absurd and minimal drama, the bulb is subjected to a series of experiments that probe its theatrical and poetic possibilities. The video is projected through a real bulb that hangs unlit in the space, offering a static counterpart to the video image. At times the physical bulb seems illuminated by its video twin, other times it hangs solemnly like a comedic “straight man” in contrast to its writhing “funny man” video partner. …Um was originally shown as part of the artists’ 2006 solo exhibition Deleted Scenes at Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery.

Rachelle Sawatsky’s Mixed Pictures is part of the artist’s recent series of works employing 35mm slides, most of which have been acquired second-hand via online sales and other sources. Using the simple tools of a hole-punch, matting tape and doubled projections, Sawatsky produces a series of antagonisms in the images; at times painterly, other times only barely perceptual. In one instance, a series of amateur photographs taken aboard a U.S. naval ship is contaminated by a tiny green shape superimposed over each of the slides. Through the course of the photographs, this small blemish in the image transitions from a minor distraction to a focus of the viewer’s attention, principally by remaining an unchanging element in the picture frame.

Hadley+Maxwell have been collaborating since 1997 and are based in Berlin, Germany. Rachelle Sawatsky is based in Vancouver, Canada.

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