Kunsthuis SYB

GABBER NATION
Opening Exhibition 23 july 2016 3pm – open end
Exhibition 24 july – 27 july 2016
Henrike Naumann

The collective project GABBER NATION focuses on gabber culture in Friesland and on the specifics of sub-culture in the rural area. While the Heipalen sound inspired the industrial gabber bass drum of Rotterdam, the village Beetsterzwaag is a quiet and peaceful place. How does the urge for destruction, that every young soul feels, find its way in an environment like this?

For the duration of her residency at Kunsthuis SYB, Henrike Naumann, together with six German, Danish and Dutch artists, delves into the gabber culture of Friesland and Germany. What does it look like now and what preceded it? They visit historic places, music events and other gatherings whilst creating an archive of photos, videos and paraphernalia.

With Merle Vorwald, Henrike Naumann analyses the ‘dome’ of Thialf in Heerenveen and the legendary Thunderdome from the film Mad Max 3. With musician Bastian Hagedorn, Naumann works on the Bass Drum Archive, an audio archive which stores the bass lines of gabber tracks. With Johannes Bütter, Naumann explores the sub-culture in the rural area and the explosive power of youth. The Dutch photographer Boris Postma reminisces with Naumann on his own gabber youth and looks for traces of the apocalyptic. In collaboration with Dutch artist Tea Palmelund the artists produce a Gabber fan-zine publication, accompanying the show. Together with artist Ekaterina Burlyga, Naumann will finally dive into the aestetics of national flags and organize a gabber street parade in the peaceful Hoofdstraat of Beetsterzwaag.

During the last week of the project period, 23rd – 27th july all the work will be displayed in a group exhibition in Kunsthuis SYB.
During the opening on the 23rd there will be performances and a gabber rave in the caravan keet.

based on an idea by Bastian Hagedorn and Henrike Naumann

more info: www.gabbernation.net

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Shaved heads, furiously hard music, an aggressive dance style, bomber jackets, and mainly white boys and girls: the aesthetics of ‘gabber’ culture is easily associated with the far right. This political connection is often cited, but never really proven. There were dubious cells and sub-groups, but how do they relate to the rest of the gabber scene? To what extent was and is the gabber movement a political movement?

This question is central in the research project GABBER NATION by Henrike Naumann. Naumann grew up in ’90s Germany, just after the fall of the wall. A period of great political unrest and far right radicalisation and at the same time the heyday of gabber culture. During this very same time in the Netherlands the Thunderdome rage let loose; with its first event in Thialf (Heerenveen) in 1992, followed by a series of notorious events and albums with popular gabber music. Local gabber scenes sprang up everywhere, each with an own identity.

In GABBER NATION Henrike Naumann, together with six German and Dutch artists and musicians, delves into the gabber culture of Friesland and Germany. What does it look like now and what preceded it? They visit historic places, music events and other gatherings whilst creating an archive of photos, videos and paraphernalia. With Merle Vorwald, Henrike Naumann analyses the ‘dome’ of Thialf and the legendary Thunderdome from the film Mad Max 3. With musician Bastian Hagedorn, Naumann works on the Bass Drumm Archive, an audio archive which stores the bass lines of gabber tracks. With Johannes Büttler, Naumann organises GABBER MEETING FRIESLAND where the two artists collect material and carry out a series of interviews about the national and local identity of gabber culture with the emphasis on the role played by women. In Hard Inside, Naumann takes a look with Tea Palmelun at the intimate living space of individual gabbers. The Dutch photographer Boris Postma reminisces with Naumann on his own gabber youth and analyses the word ‘gabber’. During the last two weekends of the project period, 23rd & 24th and 30th & 31st July, all the work will be displayed in a group exhibition in Kunsthuis SYB. Together with artist and DJ Ekaterina Burlyga, Naumann will finally dive into the gabber scene of North Rhine-Westphalia, just across the border. Here the emergence of an extreme right sub-group within the gabber scene forms the starting point for a discussion with a political projection.

Henrike Naumann was born in Zwickau (East Germany) and lives and works in Berlin. She studied Scenography, Film and Electronic Images as well as Costume and Set Design. Her multimedia installations and videos have been shown in diverse group exhibitions and at various multimedia festivals across the world. Earlier this year her solo exhibition Aufbau Ost opened in Galerie Wedding (Berlin) with collected work from the past four years: domestic situations, architectural structures, audio recordings and video work in which Naumann continues to shed light from different angles on the relation between youth culture, music, politics, idealism and violence.