Kahn and Selesnick

ArtYard is pleased to present, Truppe Fledermaus & the Carnival at the End of the World, an exhibition featuring the work of collaborative artist duo Kahn & Selesnick. Kahn & Selesnick’s current fictitious history is on full view in ArtYard’s galleries. The work features the recreation of the famous Truppe Fledermaus’s Memory Theatre of 1932 with its full complement of Batfolk, Greenmen, Rope-Slingers, and Death-Dancers in all their carnivalesque glory. An immersive, intricate and rich world made from photographs, painting, sculpture, costumes, props, decks of cards, augury, ceremony and general madness, the exhibition includes works from three series that are chapters from Kahn & Selesnick’s current story: Eisbergfreistadt, 100 Views of the Drowning World, and Madame Lulu’s Book of Fate.

This exhibition catalogues evidence and clues from The Memory Theater, creating the experience of wandering inside the story. The unfettered speculations of Kahn & Selesnick seem more firmly rooted in the land of European art, literature, and history than in the commercial, consumer or celebrity culture that drives artists and today’s marketplace to collide in contemporary conflict. Their circuitous narratives travel on perceptual shifts, altered states of consciousness, felt experience, and ceremony run amok as they guide us through the immersive visuals of their worlds.