Autor: Susanne

Der Kunstverein freut sich, die gemeinsame Ausstellung der deutschen Fotografin Signe Mähler und des amerikanischen Dichters William Cody Maher zu präsentieren. Pandora’s Box vereint Bilder und Szenerien, Gedichte und Lebensgeschichten – und eröffnet eine Welt, in der sich das Persönliche und das Universelle durchdringen und spiegeln.

In Fotografie, Video, Poesie und Live-Performance zeigen die beiden, wie die Geschichte eines Paares globale Ereignisse und individuelle Erinnerungen widerspiegeln kann – und wie die Vergangenheit genutzt werden kann, um die Gegenwart zu verstehen. Ihre Werke verweben intime Gespräche und Anekdoten mit surrealen, dramatischen, ironischen und bisweilen absurden Darstellungen der Kämpfe und Wunder des Lebens.

Gemeinsam erschaffen sie Figuren, Kostüme und Szenerien, die in Mählers Fotografien die Grenzen zwischen Traum und Wirklichkeit verschwimmen lassen – und so eine alternative Erzählung ihres Lebens und eine poetische Interpretation der Welt anbieten. Mahers Gedichte, präsentiert als Timelines, erzählen von widersprüchlichen Wahrheiten und überraschenden Wendungen im gemeinsamen Leben – und spiegeln zugleich kollektive Erfahrungen wider.

Die Ausstellung wurde von der Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung unterstützt.

Signe Mähler, geboren 1947, lebt als Fotografin in Berlin. William Cody Maher, geboren 1950 in San Francisco, ist Schriftsteller und Performancekünstler und lebt ebenfalls in Berlin. Neben ihren eigenen Arbeiten haben sie gemeinsam zwei Dokumentarfilme in den USA realisiert: Along Troubled Roads über die politische Lage vor Obamas Wahl sowie Down Southern Roads über den amerikanischen Süden nach dem Hurrikan Katrina und der Ölkatastrophe im Golf von Mexiko. Zudem entstand der Kurzfilm über den Schriftsteller und Übersetzer Carl Weissner: Mit ‘nem dicken Hals schreib ich am besten!.

ENG: The Kunstverein is pleased to present the works of German photographer Signe Mähler and American poet William Cody Maher. Their joint exhibition, Pandora’s Box – An alternate dramaturgy of the past and the present or for a dystopian world brings together images and sceneries, poems and life narratives, introducing a world in which the personal and the universal intersect and mirror one another.

Through photography, video, poetry, and live performance, the artists explore how the story of a couple can echo both global events and private memories—using the past as a lens through which to understand the present. Their work weaves intimate conversations and anecdotes into surreal, dramatic, ironic, and at times absurd depictions of life’s struggles and wonders.

Together, they invent personas, costumes, and scenes that, in Mähler’s photographs, blur the line between dream and reality—offering an alternative narrative of their shared life and a poetic reading of the world. Maher’s poems, presented as Timelines, trace conflicting truths and unexpected turns within their personal story while resonating with broader collective experience.

The show was supported by the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung.

Signe Mähler, born in 1947, is a photographer based in Berlin. William Cody Maher, born in San Francisco in 1950, is a writer and performance artist also living in Berlin. In addition to their individual practices, they have collaborated on two documentary films made in the United States: Along Troubled Roads, examining the political climate prior to Obama’s election, and Down Southern Roads, which looks at the American South following Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill. They also produced a short film on the writer and translator Carl Weissner, titled Mit ‘nem dicken Hals schreib ich am besten!.

all images Ludger Paffrath

In March 2025, the Kunstverein moved into a prefab building directly at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz – a place that, like Berlin itself, may not be old, but has become a focal point of historical upheavals within its relatively short existence. The changing names of the square, from Bülowplatz to Horst-Wessel-Platz and finally to the present Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, reflect the political and social transformations that have shaped this location. This is where multifaceted chapters of history are told, offering a perfect backdrop for artistic reflection on the failure of the grand utopias of the 20th century – whether socialist, Zionist, green, or capitalist. Traces of these utopias can be found deep within the cultural DNA of the city and this place.

all images Ludger Paffrath

Against this specific background, Mark Fridvalszki and Marko Tadić created an intense staging that combines their works – a mix of wall installations, paintings, prints, drawings, models, archival objects, and sound – into a reflection on the potential and limits of utopian thinking. The artists, originally from the former socialist countries of Hungary and Yugoslavia, have long been concerned with how visions of a better world gradually break down but continue to live on in small fragments and objects within our everyday reality. These fragments now exist somewhere between nostalgia and the future.

The exhibition taps into these ideas and uses the prefab building itself as a symbol for these broken dreams: a building that has witnessed radical changes – from the ideological struggles of the 20th century to the urban transformations of modern Berlin. It is not only about aesthetic engagement but also about examining utopias as grand social visions developed in response to the discomfort of the present, as described by Lyman Tower Sargent and others.

As part of this exhibition, the ‘Schaufenster’, a separate display window, is activated by a a loan from the collection of the Museum Utopia und Alltag in Eisenhüttenstadt  – a former neon sign of the GDR travel agency in Jena in the form of a stylised globe. This historical piece is complemented by a wallpaper and ornamental window foil designed by Fridvalszki and Tadić, thus adding another dimension to the question of the material remains of failed utopias.

The reuse of found images, objects, and displays also gives the exhibition an ecological dimension and emphasizes sustainable resource use – an approach that not only reflects on unfulfilled utopian dreams but also attempts to develop new ideas for the future from their remnants. Despite their failure, their importance for social change remains unbroken. Through artistic collaboration, a dynamic installation is created that understands failure creatively and conveys how radically different futures could look. Ideally, it will offer visitors impulses by pointing to models of how societies react to crises and develop visionary solutions.

With this exhibition, the participating artists approach themes of media archaeology from different perspectives. In Tadić’s models an images, the world manifests as a kind of miniature stage. It is not so much a world made of things but of machines that have shown them or through which they appeared: cinema, museums, exhibitions, postcards, etc. Fridvalszki counters this with his expansive wall installations. Music serves as an interplanetary common language – similar to Steven Spielberg’s naive futuristic film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). This exhibition plays with the concept of „UFO Modernism“ – the idea of preparing for a higher state of consciousness and leaving behind humanity’s animalistic side.

Although Fridvalszki and Tadić pursue visually different approaches, the message remains the same: it is about the idea of collectivism and the potential of an uncertain future. The unifying element of their work is the appropriation of everyday images from the past to question aesthetic phenomena under contemporary conditions.

This virtually echoes in the newly composed, all embracing composition by Àbáse and Ziggy Zeitgeist. Playful images and elements such as climbing frames or playgrounds set the tone for this vision. It is about reactivating the spirits of past subcultures, from ‘68 to ‘89, emphasizing solidarity and the „we“ rather than the „I.“ In that sense a jazz band symbolizes the most democratic form of collective work: playful, creative, spiritual, and emotional at the same time.

The exhibtion was curated by Susanne Prinz

Wir danken dem Museum Utopie und Alltag in Eisenhüttenstadt für die freundliche Zurverfügungstellung eines Expoants aus ihrer Sammlung. / We would like to thank the Museum Utopie und Alltag in Eisenhüttenstadt for kindly making an exhibit from their collection available to us.

Time Capsule: The Future is Out There

Moments from the closing…

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this exhibition — Special thanks to those who attended the publication launch and sound performance by Àbáse on June 20!

Video Documentation by Nina Sayuri

Die Ausstellung wurde ermöglicht durch die Unterstützung der Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt. / The exhibition was made possible by the support of the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.