Elles Knowledge Laboratory

An exhibition by the F.C. Gundlach Foundation

From June 1st to June 27th, 2024 at the Hamburg creative planet JUPITER!

Klaus Elle describes himself as an "artist in the laboratory of knowledge" and a "field worker of change." Since the late 1970s, he has created an extensive and impressive body of work in photography, painting, and sculpture that, inexplicably, remains largely undiscovered. A retrospective exhibition at JUPITER on Mönckebergstraße (formerly Karstadt Sport) now presents key themes in Klaus Elle's work through series, photographic installations, and striking individual pieces. The exhibition title reflects its mission, as Elle's work promises insight through expanded consciousness in a self-experiment, accessible to everyone.

The artist explores humanity's existential questions, focusing particularly on the challenges of today's multi-information era: Who am I? What is the construction of my identity? Who are the others, and what influence does culture have on my existence? How do I process and organize the vast amounts of information from all media channels in a meaningful way? And finally: Where does our rationality end, and how do I find contemporary approaches to the eternal mysteries of our existence—the fundamental question of a contemporary spirituality?

Klaus Elle adorns steel steles and glass thrones with thousands of photographs of the micro- and macrocosm. The resulting works, such as "Consciousness Amplifier" or "Initiation Chair," are expansive, walk-in installations that invite the viewer to engage aesthetically and spiritually with the space between images of cell nuclei and spiral nebulae.

In many of his works, Klaus Elle ventures associatively and fearlessly between such extreme poles: His large-format "world images," developed on the studio floor, symbolically depict procreation and death, science and cult, culture and nature. His self-portraits explore the relationship between self and universe. For Klaus Elle, photography is both material and raw material for his artistic creation. He uses his own photographs and found photography equally for installations, collages, and montages. Photographic prints are scratched, painted over, processed, and incorporated into constructions of wood, glass, and organic materials; photochemicals are used like oil paint, and photographic prints serve as canvases.

The exhibition opens on Friday, May 31st at 7 pm. The opening will be accompanied by an interactive musical performance by the SPIIC+ ensemble* (ligeti zentrum / artistic research lab) under the direction of Vlatko Kučan. Admission is free!

"Elle's Knowledge Laboratory"
An exhibition by the F.C. Gundlach Foundation

Where?
Creative Planet JUPITER
Mönckebergstraße 2-4
20095 Hamburg

When?
From June 1st to 27th, 2024
Mon-Tue 10am to 9pm
Wed-Sat 10am to midnight
Sunday 10 am to 6 pm

Accompanying program for the exhibition:

Sat, June 1st, 4:00 PM LECTURE Klaus Elle: "My Karmic Theater" / The playful exploration of one's own identity / Klaus Elle's portrait overpaintings from 4 decades

Mon 03.06., 18:00 LECTURE Klaus Elle: "The artist as moderator of complex systems" / Creativity as an inspiring force in change processes or "What would Beuys do today?"

Tue 04.06., 18:00 GUIDED TOUR Sebastian Lux and Franziska Mecklenburg, Curators of the F.C. Gundlach Foundation

Tue, June 11, 6:00 PM READING Martin Häusler: "Our Decisive Years" / A courageous and insightful reckoning with globally operating corporations / What we must do now

Thursday, June 13th, 6:00 PM : Lecture by Boris Eldagsen: "How does AI influence the field of human creativity and what mental strategies are necessary to use this expanded design tool effectively?" / Followed by a discussion with Klaus Elle.

*The acronym SPIIC+ stands for Social Performance, Interdisciplinary Improvisation and Creativity and is a sub-project of the new ligeti center in Hamburg. As part of the artistic research lab, SPIIC+ explores artistic and creative processes and forms of social interaction using a transdisciplinary approach. Since its founding in 2018, the SPIIC+ ensemble has participated in numerous projects, concerts, and festivals. It has garnered international attention through performances at events such as the Bauforum Magistralen (Hamburg, 2019), TENOR 2021 – International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation (Hamburg, 2021), and WAC2022 – International Web Audio Conference (2022, Cannes), where the SPIIC+ ensemble performed the highly acclaimed closing concerts.