Starting with their most recent show ...schläft sich durch at Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof in Hamburg - formerly a historic waiting room for 1st class train passengers and then a Spielhalle - Saydam will present thoughts on aesthetic categories, cliché, the decorative, Gimmick theory, workaholism, cruel optimism, gambling and how all this relates to their practice at large. Images and anecdotes will be structured alongside a series of very short readings.

Elif Saydam incorporates writing, sculpture and performance into an expanded painting practice. They have shown their work at Kunsthalle Bern; Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg; Kunstverein Nürnberg; KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, and the Montréal Biennale, among others. Together with Vera Palme, Saydam co-wrote the pulp novel Desecration of Descent (Broken Dimanche Press, 2018) and is currently working on a book with Mousse Publishing (2021) as part of the Krupp Kataloge für junge Künstler Prize. They graduated from Städelschule in the class of Monika Baer and Amy Sillman in 2016.

Registration

The lecture will be held in English.