Gallery Funaki: emu, twist again: news from the inback

July 29 to August 23, 2008

Akademie der Bildenden Künste

In West Australia there is a beer called Emu Bitter, and written on the side of the cap is ‘twist’. Musing on memories of Australia, Otto Künzli writes:

Somewhere deep in my brain I found those images of the emus running in front of our car when Therese and I went to the outback, and how wise it was to follow your instructions to slow down, even stop. Of course this doesn’t always help because the emus stop also, and as soon as one starts driving slowly they start to twist and dance and run in front of and beside the car – well, you know what I am talking about – it is really crazy and sometimes an endless game; funny and strange. But it also reminded me of us: lost in art, not making sense, but extremely committed!

I thought about a subtitle; because “Emu – twist again” as main title is very poetic and I really like it, but maybe it needs a little help on the side. I don’t know how it happened but I guess my thoughts were still in the outback. I immediately knew that there is no way to move even further out there, but maybe somehow in the opposite direction: Darren Aronofsky, talking about his movie Pi (1998) said: ‘I think the public has seen everything getting blown up – spaceships, the star of death, even our earth. What people are interested in more recently is the exploring of feelings, what is going on inside of a human. Outer space is dead. Inner space is the name of the next journey’. I recognised the connection with our practice.

Indeed we, in my department, will not change our working attitude. It has always been a combination of external experiences, of research, of exploring nature, cities, society and of internal reflections, of feelings. I myself am convinced that a trip to the outback is (not always but often) a journey to something deep inside us.

Emu – twist again: news from the Inback.

I do like the balance between the main title and the subtitle. Writing about it, I guess the subtitle gives me more food to think about. And that is fine, good. The main title is like the bottle opener, the subtitle is the content. It is a good mixture of very diverse things; ideas, contents, etc.”

Gallery Funaki presents the second exhibition of work by students currently studying with Professor Otto Künzli at the Academy of Art, Munich. To traverse the inner path that jewellery-making presents, these students journey from around the world and back again.

Marian Hosking
July 2008