Christina Zück's photographs were made in October and November 2008 during her stay in Karachi, Pakistan's 12.5 million metropolis in the South of the country. Not just since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Karachi is considered as an "epicentre" of jihadist terrorist activities. Having already visited Karachi in September 2001, her second journey was a renewed look at familiar and notorious places that had already begun to interest her during her preparatory researches and led her to the area in which Ramzi Binalshibh lived and where he was arrested in 2002.

Christina Zück's interest in places of contemporary history made her operate in areas that she could sometimes only enter accompanied, or that are at least under latent observation. And yet in spite of the partially overt threat that she encountered, her images bear witness less to an overt violence than to a many-facetted co-existence of differing forms of existence and religious practice in one of the largest settlements in the world. In direct contrast to the strongly regulated norms of public behaviour, Christina Zück looks for spaces of free social interactivity.

For the Kunstverein, Christina Zück has selected new images from the extensive series produced in Karachi and combined them with images from the group exhibition, 'Embedded Art Kunst im Namen der Sicherheit' (until 22/3/09 in Akademie der Künste, Berlin). A newly produced sound collage from field-recorded material and selected text/image combinations from her blog that she wrote during her travels on http://zueck.wordpress.com/, will accompany the photographs.

Pia Lanzinger (born 1960, lives in Berlin) is interested in (un)spectacular places that she explores for their historical layers. Her investigation method includes multi-media field research alongside text and media analysis, which is reflected in her work. Her installations can thus be understood as Spurensicherung (confirmation of evidence). The invitation from Kunstverein Langenhagen has enabled her to continue her research project on Obersalzberg.

Since 2005 Pia Lanzinger investigates how our view of the Obersalzberg has been conditioned. There, over the course of 150 years of tourism and 12 years of Nazi rule, a modern myth has been inscribed into the architecture there. After a stage in which the upper middle-classes could enjoy the beauty of the mountain, Adolf Hitler made use of its nature by presenting his state guests with a view from the panorama window of his mountain retreat as an ultimate expression of might and power. The symbolically laden backdrop gains in explosiveness through the erection of a luxury hotel in the year 2005, whereby ambiguity, parallelism and illusionism can hardly be avoided. Reactions to the historic overlay fluctuate between an attempt at diversion and sheer fascination.

In spring, 2009, Pia Lanzinger visited the hotel Zum Türken, which claimed to offer the original view from Hitler's Berghof. It had been converted in 1934 for Hitler's personal bodyguards, the Reichssicherheitsdienst (Security Services), and from 1949 to the present day has again been run as a family business. In the hallway is a homely collection of images of Berghof and its former inhabitants, and thank you letters from visitors. Questionable collections of devotional objects and pure kitsch fuse into a private mythology that conceptualises an abysmal scenario in front of the panorama of the Berchtesgaden area.

Alongside the new work, the solo exhibition Fatal Frames includes the multi-media installation, A Breathtaking Backdrop, from 2005. The exhibtion produces a highly sophisticated historical view of the relationship between framing and power interests by means of vistas of the legendary area around Watzmann and Untersberg.

The international group show „Research Base Social Space“ presents research projects and their resulting concepts by international artists confronting the growing standardisation of urban and rural environments. Public parks and memorials, public transport systems, housing and commercial areas in ten countries are the subjects and sites chosen by the artists to explore possibilities for social interaction, covert collective yearnings (and anxieties).

Classificatory apparently objective and exploration methods (Sofie Thorsen) belong to contemporary strategies, as do interventions in the social structures through offensive and poetic actions (Klara Lidén,Séverine Hubard, Sophia Tabatadze) or 'incitements' to social interaction and communication (Katerina Šedá, Özlem Sulak, 5533). Artistic mapping presents a further aspect: alongside the occupation of an area through subjective experiences and historic, utopian layers (Silke Schatz) stands the recorded reappropriation of 'non-spaces' in the steps of ubiquitous surveillance services (Malte Urbschat) and a photographic search for clues (Nathalie Grenzhaeuser). All the works thus dynamise dead-locked perceptions of social spaces.

An emphasis is laid on cartographic works, a questioning of conventional hierarchies and ordering systems, and their overlaying with complex explanations and forms of representation.

They are developing new works for Kunstverein Langenhagen in which the collective subject is the theme of death, making use of traditional forms of representation and historical references. The city and surroundings of Langenhagen serve as an exemplary area of research.

Till Krause goes through a section of Langenhagen city in a labyrinth-like fashion. The labyrinth, in whose centre death appears to lurk, becomes a symbol for the \lquote dangerous path', which for Till Krause is missing in Langenhagen.

Patrick Rieve takes up the traditional imagery of the 'death dance', developed during the 15th century, and uses it to create a contemporary, representative depiction of society. The Langenhagen round dance is presented in large format drawings.

Mark Wehrmann creates a so-called fictional cartography, i.e. the interpretation and reinterpretation of spaces through links to intellectual ideas and references from pop- or sub-culture. One source among others is T. S. Lessing's book, 'Haarmann, the History of a Werewolf'.

Séverine Hubard's creations have something purposefully makeshift about them, while in fact they are skillfully worked pieces. The material she chooses is not random: it refers back to the city and the materiality of its buildings, the preferred stomping ground of this artist »without a workshop«. Séverine Hubard's work, however, never limits itself to one single concrete approach since she is able to give the most banal elements new dimension: above and beyond their sometimes brute aspect, her pieces, a combination of poetry and humor, also subtly touch upon the notion of memory.

'Observe Right of Way' is a work developed in and for Langenhagen. Traffic routes mould our cities: approach paths, fast lanes, motorways, rail lines and tram lines - we perceive our cities in movement and from a distance. Buildings become facades, greenery becomes ornamentation on the city backdrop that presents itself as an image. Séverine Hubard records the local conditions, tangles them up, and stands them on their head.

The return of the small format is a quiet but nonetheless conspicuous phenomenon. It long seemed to be an old-fashioned, picturesque curiosity, hardly capable of bearing contemporary art’s styles, methods and problematic of. But one can now increasingly find small-format works in various fields of present-day art. No previous exhibition has dealt with this transformation, and yet it poses exciting questions: What induced the return of the miniature? What are the works’ qualities and how do they relate to the few miniature statements of past decades?

"Amor Parvi" describes a previously neglected field of relationships, stylistic genealogies and new questions. The interest in the clarity and structure of the small format is shown not to be a modest gesture, but rather an advancement of exacting examination, of “coming closer” and finding a very distinct art experience in this concentrated proximity. And in fact the viewer’s glance often lingers longer on such small-format works than larger works which already seem so revealing from a distance. (Oliver Tepel)

We are proud to present ingo Mittelstaedts first insitutional Solo Show and his latest series Chromas.

What is photography? Ingo Mittelstaedt explores this frequently asked question in his new analogue works - with models made of paper, foil, found materials and everyday objects. He creates carefully composed scenarios in his images that condense into tension-filled illusions of surface and spatial elements.

The exploration of colour plays a central role in the works produced in 2011. Bright areas of blue, red and yellow tones dominate the image composition. Mittelstaedt addresses considerations of colour theory and refers to the painting of classical modernism and its exploration of colour, surface, line and space. Puzzling mirroring, distortions and reflections determine the images - but they do not lead to the dissolution of objectivity: rather Mittelstaedt references museum and photographic methods of presentation of the 50's and 60's with his almost stage-like arrangements.

Ingo Mittelstaedt (born 1978) studied with Dörte Eisfeld at HBK in Braunschweig and has been a freelance artist since 2009. He has had numerous exhibitions at home and in the Netherlands, Spain, Brasil and the USA.

The photographer, Nathalie Grenzhaeuser, creates contemporary landscape images. The arctic area of Spitzbergen and the Australian Outback are the destinations of her research travels, her subjects are remote natural spaces in contrast to extensive industrial usage. Her themes are those of alterations in these landscapes in relation to climate change, globalised markets, military usage and social connections. The images owe a lot to Nathalie Grenzhaeuser's courage in entering forbidden terrain, deliberately ignoring 'No Trespassing' signs and thereby opening up hidden views.

Nathalie Grenzhaeuser takes analogue photographs that are then reworked digitally. She uses the tension between 'documentary' shots that arise from often dangerous and exhausting journeys, and digital reworking to stage places and landscapes. Magnificent landscape photos ensue that equally quote examples from both art and recent film histories and thus place cultural memories such as horizons of desire and scenes of angst in the image.

The seductive style of the photographs admittedly leads one to speculate on a digital reworking, yet her techniques of staging first become clearer on a much closer viewing. In this way her photographic works constitute real and hidden places simultaneously. Grenzhaeuser overlays her landscapes with an amalgam of pathos, light irony and mystification that repeatedly plays with the uncanny, the imaginative, and thus produces a relevance beyond routine documentary activities.

Their exhibitions often have the character of heterogeneous compilations in which they use various formats such as video, photography, sound, painting and text combined with spatial interventions that relate to the conditions in the exhibition space. These stagings involve the viewer in a complex game and the exhibitions often appear as narrative plays.

Within these stagings conditions that also form the focus in relation to their own artistic production, are central, as are phenomena that are productive in the search for places such as hotel foyers, symposia and exclusive clubs as well as special economic areas or employment agencies. The question of value and production frequently plays a central role.

Jochen Schmith’s conception for the Kunstverein Langenhagen turns the exhibition space into a setting for the viewer. Through the combination of site-specific interventions Jochen Schmith structures the room sequentially - the minimally adjusted cabinets open up a network of symbolic and social codings marked by an intense atmosphere.

In 2009 we presented two works from the Danish artist, Sofie Thorsen (born 1971) in the group exhibition, ‘Forschungsstation Sozialer Raum’. Thorsen’s interest encompasses contemporary architecture as well as city- and landscape planning phenomena. Her usually long-term projects include multi-part works within an ever-developing field of interest. All works are preceded by extensive site-specific research, which enables her to include hidden historical, economic and socio-cultural implications.

The starting point of the exhibition, “Leuchtend Grau”, is her latest film, ‘The Achromatic Island, (2009), that she made on the Danish island of Fur. Alongside the presentation of the landscape that is characterised, on the one hand of migration into cities, and on the other by urban sprawl through the encouragement of commercial areas, Thorsen establishes a particular vision: her black and white film attempts to present a filmic equivalent to the hereditary colour blindness that was prevalent on Flur until the 30’s.

With the aid of an interview with a colour blind person and quotes from relevant literature, Thorsen comes closer to this particular form of perception that is accompanied by an extreme sensitivity to light, reduced visual sharpness and a comprehensive colour blindness. By means of recording techniques and material she undertakes the attempt to translate this into images. Long passages combined with text sequences and photographs sound out various attempts at pictorial ordering. The multifaceted approach turns into a ‘conceptual visual test’ that demonstrates the borders of communication and presentability of different perceptions.

Jérôme Chazeix (born 1976) builds complex installations which create hybrid parallel worlds. He creates multi-media installations that he refers to as 'total' objects. Performances, which form part of the whole concept, are frequently realised in the installations and permanently presented as videos. Jérôme Chazeix's works are contemporary total works of art, theatrical installations in the truest sense as a stage for the public. Their special quality and brisance arise from their critical analysis of contemporary consumerism: in quoting its specific techniques and design languages, they do not submit to the dictates of passive consumerism, but rather celebrate a happy resistance through an active appropriation of contemporary behavioural repertoires that communicate worldwide, for example, through fashion. The desire to assimilate contemporary 'role models' in a musical-like and euphoric manner combines real fascination with twinkling pastiche. 'Fashion Weeks' is a total installation that brings together Chazeix's performative works critical of consumption and society. The installation (comparable to a film set) satirises a fashion store.