ANNE DUK HEE JORDAN
The End Is Where We Start From
Anne Duk Hee Jordan
The End Is Where We Start From
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
These lines by T. S. Eliot from Little Gidding, the final poem, published in London in 1942, of the Four Quartets series, are the inspiration for the eponymous title of Anne Duk Hee Jordan’s first institutional solo exhibition in Austria. The End Is Where We Start From delineates a cyclical movement that is inscribed in the exhibition space both thematically and physically. “We are deeply connected with everything around us,” emphasizes the artist, “and to understand ecology we must think in continuous cycles.”
Developed specifically for the KunstHausWien, the multisensory exhibition presents two worlds on two levels: starting from the Archean Eon, when the first life arose on the Earth thanks to an oxygen-rich atmosphere, the scenery transforms into a magical fluorescing underwater world that enables visitors to plunge to the depths of an ocean populated by fantastic creatures and microscopically tiny phytoplankton.
Anne Duk Hee Jordan intentionally interleaves scientific knowledge with poetic imagination, links organic nature with Romantic visions of technology, merges the human with the nonhuman, and in this way creates an artistic universe imbued with a profound sensibility for ecological and social issues. In multimedia works set under and above water, nature is never just a “feel-good landscape” but a dynamic ecosystem shaped and pervaded by transiency, recovery, and new beginnings.
As an exhibition, The End Is Where We Start From is a meditation on the cyclical nature of life, showing that every end also represents a new beginning.
Biography
Anne Duk Hee Jordan, born in 1978 in Korea, lives and works in Berlin. Duk Hee studied at the Weissensee Academy of Art, Berlin, and subsequently completed a Master of Fine Arts at the Institut für Raumexperimente, Berlin, under the institute’s founding director, Ólafur Eliasson. Anne Duk Hee Jordan is a professor of digital media art at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design.
Solo and group exhibitions (selection) Canal Projects, New York (2024, in preparation); I will always weather with you, The Bass, Miami Beach, Florida (2023/2024); Liquid Intelligence, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (2023); Re/Sisters. A Lens on Gender and Ecology, Barbican Art Gallery, London (2023); Worlds Away, Alexander Levy, Berlin (2023); 1.5 Degrees, Kunsthalle Mannheim (2023); Soft and Weak Like Water, 14. Gwangju Biennale (2023); I must transform myself into a life-form that can exist on this planet, HEK - House of Electronic Arts, Basel (2023); Brakfesten / La Grande Bouffe, with Pauline Doutreluingne, Baltic Art Centre and Public Art Agency Sweden, Gotland (2022); Making Kin 3. 0, KIOSK, Ghent (2021); Down to Earth, Gropius Bau, Berlin (2020); Forces Times Distance - On Labour and its Sonic Ecologies, Sonsbeek (2020); Ziggy goes wild, Kunstverein Arnsberg (2019); International Biennale of Contemporary Art in Riga (2018).
Curator
Barbara Horvath
In dialogue
Curator Barbara Horvath in dialogue with artist Anne Duk Hee Jordan
The multi-sensory exhibition at KunstHausWien transports visitors to a fluorescent underwater world full of fantastic creatures and microscopic phytoplankton. Anne Duk Hee Jordan creates an artistic universe that combines scientific knowledge with poetic imagination and addresses ecological and social issues.
Language: DE
Artist Talk
With Anne Duk Hee Jordan & Christoph Platz-Gallus (Director, Kunstverein Hannover)
Anne Duk Hee Jordan's works are dense ecosystems. In conversation with Christoph Platz-Gallus, Duk Hee will discuss the importance of layers and immersion in her work. Looking ahead to the exhibition, she will provide an insight into the role that technology and creatures of all kinds play for her.
Anne Duk Hee Jordan creates an artistic universe inspired by marine life and the oxygen atmosphere, robotics, sexuality and symbiosis.
The artist talk took place on 10 September 2024 as part of the opening of the exhibition The End Is Where We Start From.
Publication
The first bilingual German-English monograph on the artist, will bring together pivotal aspects of Anne Duk Hee Jordan’s work. The authors—Pauline Doutreluingne, Barbara Horvath, Chus Martínez, Clara Runge, Ursula Ströbele, and James Voorhies—engage with the artist’s specific approach and working method from different perspectives. These insights are complemented by excerpts from relevant texts in the fields of literature, philosophy, cultural theory, and the natural sciences, in particular texts by Astrida Neimanis and Christoph Cox.
Ed. Barbara Horvath, KunstHausWien GmbH
208 Pages, English/German, numerous illustrations, 19,5 x 26 cm, paperback
Hirmer Verlag, Munich
ISBN: 978-3-7774-4438-3
Exhibition Folder download
PROGRAMME for the exhibition
Opening evening 10.09.2024 17:30-22:00
17:30-18:30
Artist Talk Anne Duk Hee Jordan
With Anne Duk Hee Jordan & Christoph Platz-Gallus (Director, Kunstverein Hannover)
19:00
Opening of the exhibition Anne Duk Hee Jordan. The End Is Where We Start From
Public guided tours Anne Duk Hee Jordan
Every 2nd + 4th Sunday from September to January at 11:00 am
22.09.2024 / 13.10.2024 / 27.10.2024 / 10.11.2024 / 24.11.2024 / 08.12.2024 / 22.12.2024
12.01.2025 / 26.01.2025
Langugae: DE
DIY station Build your robot
SAT 14.09.2024, 10:30-13:30
First come, first served
In cooperation with Wunderwuzzi Roboter
Curator's Tour / Curator's Tour
With Barbara Horvath
THU 26.09.2024, 17:00-18:00
SAT 18.01.2025, 15:00-16:00
Langugae: DE
Workshop Forest in the Sky
With Artist Alex Franz Zehetbauer (in English)
SAT 28.09.2024 14:00-17:30
SUN 29.09.2024 14:00-17:30
Workshop exclusively on the wooded roof of the museum
Language: DE
Guided Tour Fascinating marine creatures
With Marine Biologist Bettina Riedel
WED 16.10.2024 18:00-19:30
Future Talk: Climate X Change
Climate, art & artificial intelligence
FRI 15.11.2024 18:00-19:30
In cooperation with the Kurier
Langugae: DE
Breath-Workshop & Meditation Discover the art of breathing
With Sabine Winkler & Philipp Sharma
WED 04.12.2024 18:00-21:00
WED 15.01.2025 18:00-21:00
In cooperation with Atem Yoga Awakeing
Guided Tour Earth Ages & Universe
With Evolutionary Biologist and Natural Philosopher Johannes Jäger
WED 11.12 18:00-19:30
Langugae: DE
