Kimm Sun Sinn
Kunsthalle Krems, Factory
curator Karin Pernegger
Feb 28 - April 18 2010
[…]
As a preparation for the exhibition in Factory Krems, Mahony crossed the Atlantic Ocean by cargoship from Germany to Brasil in autumn 2009.
The title of the show Kimm Sun Sinn refers to the idea of location: Kimm (german nautic term for horizon) and the sun are the required elements for an analogue location determination at sea.
The wooden sculpture close to the entrance of the exhibition space could be described as a sketch of a ships bow. The two screens at the back of the sculpture show the daily monotony at sea. The larger projection on the left shows the frontal view from the ship at the sea, a constant and fast movement with the horizon as constant point of orientation. Next to it on a smaller screen, we see the group eating without communicating and pictures of the empty functional interior architecture of the ship.
The Container is one of the important elements in the sequence of 18 images. It was invented in 1956 and constituted a fundamental change in the global transportation of goods. The standardised metal cover serves as a black box that converts global trade to an anonymous transfer.
In the work We are the World a stylized container is turning slowly in the middle of a round basin filled with black water. Out of the container one can hear a karaoke version of the song “We are the World”, sung by Mahony and the crew of the Cargoship.
Excerpts of the exhibition text by Karin Pernegger
