Sorcha Dallas

HBC and Kollektiv Berlin are pleased to announce the group exhibition LYNCHMOB: Tribute to David, opening on February 7th and running until February 28, 2009 at HBC.

In keeping with the dark and palpably sinister undertones symptomatic of Berlin’s urban landscape during the dead of winter, LYNCHMOB pays homage to the twisted imagination and disturbing universe of visionary director, artist and transcendental philosopher David Lynch, whose particular sense of the absurd, the morbid, the perverse and the surreal provides the exhibition’s premise, as well as an aesthetic and conceptual arena for the works on view. LYNCHMOB features 21 emerging and established artists, representing 10 different countries, whose works reflect the grotesque, erotic and often violent currents –swelling behind seemingly idyllic or tranquil facades – that characterize Lynch’s signature style.

The venue itself is an archetypal “Lynchian” space, having formerly been the Hungarian Cultural Center and located directly on historic Alexanderplatz, a city square notorious for its surreal monuments and anachronistic design. The stark socialist architecture of HBC and its current incarnation as an innovative and experimental arts space typifies one of Lynch’s central beliefs: surfaces lie.

With allusions to Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Eraserhead and Lynch’s other cinematic achievements embedded throughout the exhibition, the works presented embrace diverse media and range from David Nicholson’s photorealist, sadomasochistic paintings to Stefan Saffer’s theatrical installations, from Oliver Pietsch’s montaged videos of violence, escape and indulgence to Sandro Pordcu’s macabre kinetic sculptures. Stemming from the vast lexicon of compelling, if not unnerving, imagery amassed through Lynch’s myriad contributions to contemporary sub and mainstream culture, LYNCHMOB revels in the pornographic, the esoteric, the uncanny and the depraved. David Lynch, we salute you.