Matthias Böhler (*1981 Aachen) and Christian Orendt (*1980 Sighișoara, Romania) formed their artistic duo in 2008. They bring wit, irony and black humour to their account of human dealings: how we waste resources that took millions of years to evolve, how we have already destroyed more than 2.5 billion hectares of forest and exterminated over 60 per cent of terrestrial vertebrates.
In this exhibition a huge monkey-like creature serves as a multiple source of “raw materials” for busy squads of workers. At the heart of the second installation a spaceship resembling a lotus bud invites visitors to come inside and explore. A sequence of nine overpainted photocollages made in 2020 promises “The Sweet Certainty of Deliverance from the Darkness that Surrounds Us”. Extinct animals perform a ghostly lament, summoning a mysterious power to rid the planet of this threat by wondrous means. The collages belong to the Berlinische Galerie’s collection and are being shown in the museum for the first time.