Berlin-based artist Via Lewandowsky (*1963) had his international breakthrough at documenta IX in Kassel in 1992, and more recently attracted attention in Germany with a piece commissioned by the German Ministry of Defense, an aerial view of Berlin showing the devastation of World War Two. This publication presents the artist’s most recent works, which are devoted to the supposed irrationality of ordinary logic. Lewandowsky devises complicated installations that are often determined, down to the smallest detail, by irony and deception, often examining the idiosyncrasies of the German language and its visual interpretations. For example, the German word Schrankwand (wall unit) becomes an object in which a wall and a cupboard penetrate each other and a door in the wall stands half-open in the cupboard. Paeninsula deconstructs the word Halbinsel, which literally means “half-island.” Neither an island nor festland, the term represents the artist’s way of working. Lewandowsky’s Paeninsula is a place and a retrospective simultaneously, a world in which one can never be sure of the true meaning of things. Exhibition schedule: Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, September 9–October 15, 2006 · Additional venues K unsthalle Göppingen · Neues Museum Weserburg
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