Motus

Motus is an exhibition space on a bicycle that operates in public space in and around Berlin. Motus was founded by artist Adrien Missika in 2022. In the frame of BAW Garten 2023, Motus presents 5 solo projects. Each presentation unfolds for a few hours only, at different spots around the Neue Nationalgalerie terrasse and beyond.

WED 13 SEP, 5—8pm
with Jeewi Lee ›Shift‹ 
For her Motus exhibition at BAW Garten, Jeewi Lee presents a sculpture in the shape of a patchwork of trash bins attached to the bicycle. Lee shifts literally roles and usage, by bringing the bins to their users, allowing visitors to stand still with their trash instead of walking to them in a space where bins seem to have vanished or never existed. The bicycle is riding from consumer to consumer, harvesting ashes or PET bottles at the very hands of their users.
Performance every hour

THU 14 SEP, 5—8pm
with Kasia Fudakowski ›Remoaners‹ 
For her Motus exhibition at BAW Garten, Fudakowski shows a portable installation of three parts, which responds to the Rimowa aluminium ribbed suitcase as a status symbol and its associated clique. A classic accessory of contemporary art dealers, the suitcase engages with the desired image of a gallerist (as an insider’s status symbol) as well as the constant challenge to transport large scale ambitious, art works. Fudakowski entertains this role of practicality by reproducing some of her largest works, which are impossible to transport without a generous budget, and placing them as miniatures inside the suitcases. The presentation humorously plays with codes and scales; the rather large suitcases suddenly appear even bigger on a small bicycle yet remain dwarfed by MOTUS’s temporary location next to Isa Genzken’s Giant Pink Rose sculpture with a backdrop of the Mies van der Rohe museum. 

THU 14 SEP, 7.17pm 
Performance in front of Isa Genzken's Pink Rose: ›This is not a performance‹, 2014—ongoing 
›This is not a performance‹ is a commissioned piece entailing the artist’s vow to quit smoking, complete with a plaque to commemorate her decision. Instead of being a promise, the action of quitting smoking, picking up the habit again, and quitting again becomes a farcical performance that plays with the idea of finality yet ultimately strips it of its power and meaning.

FRI 15 SEP, 6—9pm
with Adrien Missika & Sarah Ancelle Schönfeld ›Old Brew‹ 
Where are we from? Where are we going? What happened to the dinosaurs? What can we learn from the past? Missika & Schönfeld try to address existential questions around the social space that is a pop up street bar. Or is it a lab? For their presentation with Motus at BAW Garten, Adrien Missika and Sarah Ancelle Schönfeld will install Motus in front of a Spätkauf, targeting a wide audience for their performative experiment: Motus will turn into a lab-bar, hosting the 'The Extinction Studies Institute', that works with ancient excrement fossils and the digetive system of the visitors.

c/o Spätywood, Kurfürstenstraße 164

SAT 16 SEP,  3—7pm
with: Moritz Frei ›That’s All Folks‹ 
For his MOTUS exhibition at BAW Garten, Moritz Frei turns the bicycle into a vanitas zeppelin, defying gravity humourously. Is he attempting to lift Motus in thin air ? The performance will take the whole afternoon, inflating haiku balloons and giving some away, creating a huge bouquet rising  under the roof of the Neue Nationalgalerie. That’s all Folks! 

SO 17 SEP, 4—8pm
with Saâdane Afif ›Still Loving You‹  
Berlin, Berlin ›Wo bist du?!‹. Now less poor you are for sure, so less sexy?  Could it be that your generous promises of a world to be reinvented together have turned into the conservative promises of a provincial bourgeoisie? I love you, Berlin. We have been side by side, for better or for worse. But after all these years, maybe it's time to break the dishes. Can we bring our love up to date? And what is love anyways? These are just some of the questions that Saâdane Afif proposes to address at the invitation of MOTUS for the opening of Berlin Art Week.