TÖTAL FANTASY

In the organizer's words:

We have a total fantasy in 2025: as an artist, you find yourself in a small city where left-wingers politicize the youth with punk, the city clown is considered a German cultural asset and trains at the police sports club, while the CDU mayor promotes the Wallviertel with a 1% rocker. For some an absurd dream, for others a lived reality as they stroll through the "Forum Medicus".

The exhibition TÖTAL FANTASY takes place at Makroskope in Mülheim an der Ruhr and offers an exciting insight into the creative process of two artists from Karlsruhe, who find themselves in Mülheim an der Ruhr as part of a short residency at the Alter Mülheimer Kunstverein. Whether tattoos, copy zines or other experimental media - the diverse results of this exploration of "urban" impulses will be on display at TÖTAL FANTASY.

Grischa Kaczmarek
Grischa Kaczmarek lives in Karlsruhe and Freiburg. He studied painting at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe and at the ENPEG La Esmeralda in Mexico City, graduating in 2022 as a master student of Vivian Greven. His works explore the appearance and physicality of color by combining complex, sonorous and almost childlike elements. Through compositional processes, he creates new pictorial spaces in which collective stories are reinterpreted - an approach that leaves the recognizable behind and opens up space for an innovative visual language. His works have already been shown in numerous exhibitions in cities such as Berlin, Zurich, The Hague and Mexico City and have been awarded prizes, including the Landesgraduiertenstipendium 2021.

Nils Weiligmann
Nils Weiligmann (*1988) studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe as well as in Tianjin (China) and Minnesota (USA) and was a master student of Leni Hoffmann. His works range between objects and site-specific installations. With destructive gestures that imprint themselves on the material, objects can be observed that collapse and tire through their processual emergence, but at the same time radiate a fascinating, ambivalent attraction. His parasitic installations "claw" into the existing architecture, redefine spaces and demand a changed, active perception from the viewer.

As part of the AMK's short residency, both artists will be working for a week at the Makroscope in Mülheim an der Ruhr. The question "What effect does this city have on artists?" will become a central creative impulse. In direct exchange with the Museum für Fotokopie M.F.F. and the inner-city environment, a wide variety of works will be created on site - from drawings and paintings to sculptures, tattoos and copy-zines - which directly document the creative process. The resulting scenes and objects will then be exhibited in the Makroscope on March 7, 2025 at 5 pm.

The exhibition is curated by the artist group AMK in close cooperation with the residents of the old Mülheimer Kunstverein. The bar is open from 5 pm.

DJ Mina Threat will provide the right soundtrack with her vinyl set. With warm, "washy" chords and trippy, delay-drenched synths, she creates an astral-aquatic quality set that underscores the atmosphere of the exhibition in terms of sound and the experience of art and space.

Additional information:
During the residency, Grischa Taksi and NILS will be offering tattoos. For bookings and further information, please contact the artists directly via Instagram.