PUBLICATION

The exhibition magazine as a free bilingual PDF can be downloaded here – the printed version is available on site at the HMKV bookshop and can be ordered via Verlag Kettler.

Editor: Inke Arns
Texts: Inke Arns, Iris Dressler
Design: Ten Ten Team, Dortmund
Photography: Exhibition views: Roland Baege / Works: Niklas Goldbach
Year: 2024
Language: German, English, German "Einfache Sprache"
Format: 17 × 24 cm, 168 pages
Publisher: Kettler, Dortmund
ISBN: 978 3 98741 126 7

EXHIBITED WORKS

1. 1550 SAN REMO DRIVE

Video, 18:00 min, HD Video, Stereo, 2017

View work

Photo: Roland Baege

2. INTO THE PARADISE MACHINE

Video Installation, UHD Video, Stereo, 55:00 min, 2022/23

View work

Photo: Roland Baege

3. TODAY ON LUMEN 2000

Video, duration variable, NTSC Transfer to PAL Video, Stereo, 2024

View work

Photo: Roland Baege

4. THE WORLD

Video Loop, 13:00 min, HD Video, silent, 2012

View work

Photo: Roland Baege

5. A DATE WITH DESTINY

Video, 18:45 min, HD Video, Stereo, 2019

View work

Photo: Roland Baege

6. PARADISE NOW

2-Channel video Installation for 4K Projection and Discoball, 40:00 min, UHD Video, Stereo, 2024

View work

Photo: Roland Baege

7. PERMANENT DAYLIGHT

Digital pigment prints on Photo Archive Paper, 76 × 50 cm, framed, presented in fixed constellations ('Groups'), 2013 – ongoing

View work

"Day 7", Group from the series Permanent Daylight, 76,4 × 176,6 cm, 2024
3 Digital Pigment Prints on Photo Archive Paper, 75 × 50 cm, individually framed

"Greetings from", Group from the series Permanent Daylight, 76,4 × 176,6 cm, 2024
3 Digital Pigment Prints on Photo Archive Paper, 75 × 50 cm, individually framed

"In Between Days", Group from the series Permanent Daylight, 76,4 × 113,6 cm, 2024
2 Digital Pigment Prints on Photo Archive Paper, 75 × 50 cm, individually framed

"The Killing Moon", Group from the series Permanent Daylight, 76,4 × 367,2 cm, 2024
6 Digital Pigment Prints on Photo Archive Paper, 75 × 50 cm, individually framed

"Posterity", Group from the series Permanent Daylight, 76,4 × 304 cm, 2024
5 Digital Pigment Prints on Photo Archive Paper, 75 × 50 cm, individually framed

8. A STATE OF HAPPINESS

Mixed Media Installation, 12 Digital Prints on chipboard, cable straps, 6 metal hoardings
Installation size: 200 × 350 × 70 cm (Chipboard: 128,9 × 94,1 × 0,5 cm / Print size: 118,9 × 84,1 cm)

View work

PERFORMANCES

INTO THE PARADISE MACHINE
Video Screening & Lecture Performance with Live Score by Schneider TM, ca. 70 minutes
HMKV im Dortmunder U, Cinema, 23.05.2024
Curated by Inke Arns
Photos: Ermine Ercihan

INTO THE PARADISE MACHINE
Video Screening & Lecture Performance, Stereo, 55 min, 2022/23
Saalbau Witten, 09.08.2024
Photos: Daniel Sadrowski

EXHIBITION VIDEO

https://vimeo.com/929784843

PRESS REVIEWS

"The exhibition at the HMKV presents the promises of salvation of this well-oiled ideological paradise machine in neutral and thus reveals its repressed historical-materialistic flipside in all its brutal banality." Thorsten Schneider, KUNSTFORUM International, Vol. 297 August 2024
link to article

"This desolate landscape in which Goldbach's photographs—either framed or fixed on soft board—act as interior decor or outdoor messages is disturbing enough, even more so when we realize that it's pristine. It lacks any trace of past human presence and feels like a social experiment in the making." Krzysztof Kosciuczuk in Camera Austria, Nr. 166
link to article

"Daniela Berglehn: 'What is paradise for you?' Niklas Goldbach: 'That's difficult. I think we look for the untouched, we feel that the unshaped is a paradise. But there is always the desire to create. And great things are created. It's a dilemma. The longing, it doesn't stop.'" (03 April 2024, Daniela Berglehn in conversation with Niklas Goldbach, Monopol Magazin)

"It's clever how he puts a work from 2022 about the Center Parcs, which are widely spread throughout Europe, into the focus of the exhibition. [...] Goldbach's perspective remains neutral, but in all works it becomes apparent that there's a fine line between Utopia and Dystopia." kunst:art Nr. 15, May/June 2024

"Utopia meets Dystopia. The exhibition poetically stages the correlation between high-level aims and inevitable decay." (08 April 2024, trailer ruhr)

"Goldbach explores resorts all over the world with his camera. [...] But the bitter realization of the exhibition is this: paradise can neither be bought nor be built." (08 April 2024, WAZ)

HMKV WEBSITES

DE: https://www.hmkv.de/ausstellungen/ausstellungen-detail/niklas-goldbach-the-paradise-machine.html
EN: https://www.hmkv.de/exhibition/exhibition-detail/niklas-goldbach-the-paradise-machine-en.html