"B2B and Back Again: Group Show on B2B by Jan-Holger Mauss"
2004-09-09 until 2004-10-15
Laura Mars Group
Berlin, , DE Germany

The “New Economy” term “Business to Business”, or “B2B” is expanded in an art project initiated by Jan-Holger Mauss: the B2B activities of the Hamburg-based artist began in 1995 with a response to work by Eva Grubinger, who had offered a downloadable sewing pattern for a “net bikini” on a Website. Mauss copied the pattern in its “top – small/bottom – medium” combination and since then, has continued to explore in his own manner the question of authorship of an artwork raised by Grubinger through her offer of an “authenticity label”.

As model, muse and co-producer, Mauss asks other artists to depict him posing in his bikini. The resulting artworks occur within a dialogue. The more than 100 pieces produced so far not only create a multiple self-portrait of Jan-Holger Mauss, they also simultaneously document the connections between the participating artists and the social and economic network in which they move.

Mauss’ work touches on numerous topics currently discussed in today’s art world: aspects of gender, queerness, physicality, the question of intellectual and artistic property, and the relationship between fine and applied arts. At the same time, Mauss is interested in formal categories. Following the exhibition Zusammentreffen at Hamburg’s aplanat gallery, which consisted solely of photographs, with B2B at Laura Mars Grp., Mauss is showing works that transfer photographs to other media. The pieces in this exhibition are based on photos that have been further processed by several different means. Whether Marc Brandenburg’s sticker versions of his drawings; Gabriele Basch’s filigreed silhouettes, which are projected as shadows on the wall; Caro Suerkemper’s video animation, made from watercolors, in each case, the borders between production and reproduction, original image and copy are explored. While the artworks stake a claim for autonomy, they are at the same components of an ever-growing art network. They form the artificial figure of the “Bikini Man”, which in all of its versions symbolizes one thing above all: aesthetic and social transformation.

Artists' work included by: Sonja Alhäuser, Kati Barath, Gabriele Basch, Eva Baumert, Ingrid Beckmann, Anne Berning, Marc Brandenburg, Daniela Comani, Ursula Döbereiner, Kerstin Drechsel, Tobias Gerber, Julien Grenier, Sabina Maria van der Linden, Marc Lüders, Florian Merkel, Caro Suerkemper, Reinhardt von der Tannen, Cony Theis, and Jochen Twelker.

IMAGE
© Cony Theis
23062004
Fotografie, 2004

Related Links:

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Other Important Exhibitions in Berlin