Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof is excited to present its upcoming exhibition with Dara Friedman. It will be her first institutional solo exhibition in Germany. 

In a time marked by conflicts, Dara Friedman's new video work Temple Door is dedicated to solving conflict. Guided by the credo that true victory is a victory over oneself, she examines the structures underlying confrontation, conflict, and negotiation. 
The protagonists act out confrontational scenes, blaming each other, becoming physical, and desiring to be seen and perceived. They develop gestures and actions in which confusion, anger, and frustration turn progressively into joy, with subject and body finding a new balance. 

Temple Door was filmed during a 7-day Artissima Experimental Academy workshop in May of 2019, together with the artist and biologist Daniela Marcozzi and the Aikido master Massimiliano Furlanetto. Artists and art students from Hamburg, Bremen, London, Frankfurt, Milan, and Los Angeles travelled to Venice and were key to the workshop. Participants themselves decided which conflict solutions would be developed and practiced, thus creating a psychodramatic setting in which personal conflicts were acted out – and ultimately allowing the participants to learn how the intensely personal is also supra-individual. 

INVITATION TO AN ENCOUNTER

A meeting of two: eye to eye, face to face.
And when you are near,
I will tear your eyes out
and place them instead of mine,
and you will tear my eyes out
and will place them instead of yours,
then I will look at you with your eyes
And you will look at me with mine.

(J.L. Moreno, 1914)