Memorys and Prepositions and Conjunctions and in all Seriousness (Kunstraum)

Institutionally over- and practically underdetermined: the Kunstraum. Consisting of two equally oversized signifiers – “Kunst” (art) and “Raum” (space) – the name triggers either an excess or a lack of expectation. The inevitable disappointment is perhaps the better form of institutional critique – at least these days, in Germany. The institution, notoriously, presupposes itself (in time, too), and its stake is always at minimum a linguistic one. This is where Leonie Nagel feat. Bonk4∞ intervene. They playfully engage with the institution within a prepared environment, whose maximally weak rule is the connection (or association, if it didn’t sound so class-treasonous) between words and images and bodies. Prepositions and conjunctions form relations in space and an order that does not truly order but that serves as a condition for one´s orientation, positioning, and reference in the world. Its floor plan is an eight memory-game cards long line between Recklinghausen and German nature folklore. In this space, Bonk and Nagel “teach” a seminar as a seminar at a university, that is, as a constellation of rules, expectations, political positions, and the collateral.

Leonie Nagel is an artist. She lives and works in Berlin. In her site-specific installations, she works with various media (e.g., photography, drawing, text, narratives, mass-produced everyday objects, video) and explores abstract systems of order, often with specific reference to the organization of communal living. Most recently, she exhibited her work at the Kunstverein Nürnberg-Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaft, at sis123 in La Chaux-de-Fonds and at the Kunstsammlungen Zwickau. In 2026, her work is featured in exhibitions at the n.b.k. Berlin and the Kunstbunker Nürnberg, amongst others. From 2021 to 2024, she worked as a freelance lecturer in the class for photography in the field of contemporary art at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig. Following further teaching assignments, she served as an artistic assistant in Prof. Andrea Büttner’s class at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, from 2025 to 2026. Since 2022, she has been organizing the Cittipunkt e.V. space in Berlin as part of a group. In 2024, the film “Echte Sonnen” was made at the Forcki adventure playground with the group KERFE (Micha Bonk, Leonie Nagel and anyone else who joins in). A project with KERFE is planned for 2026 at a school in Berlin.