With the exhibition Perfectly Imperfect, the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur explores the tension between perfection and deviation and addresses the qualities of the supposedly flawed, the significance of the unfinished, the patina of the ephemeral or the art of repair. It is critically dedicated to a striving for quality that cannot be fulfilled or is deliberately and creatively undermined. In creative processes and in our immediate living environment, the balance between a necessary or supposed demand for perfection and dealing with apparent and serious mistakes turns out to be complex. So the question arises, when is something perfect at all? What is the value of apparent shortcomings?

Wrong decisions or carelessness, technical defects, design flaws and the stubbornness of materials or their wear and tear and transience - the reasons for imperfection are manifold. The show exemplifies the extent to which the consequences of flaws, imperfections and defects can have damaging or positive effects, such as the charming blemish that makes an object something very special. The focus is on the deviation from the ideal and it is questioned how the damaged can be absorbed or repaired, how reused material resources can lead to new solutions or how failure and playing with chance can open up new paths. Because: Perfectly Imperfect is much more than shortcomings and defects.

Art Safari is a successful exhibition format of Studio Bubec Prague and will be presented for the first time outside the Czech Republic at riesa efau. Kultur Forum Dresden from 20.10. - 19.11.2023. Originally, the name "Art Safari" did not refer to an adventure trip into the wilderness or the observation of wild animals, but to the examination of art in its natural environment, shown in an art studio.
This year's edition now actually focuses on the theme of animals. It invites us to look at the mutual relationships between humans and animals and to reflect on ourselves in the process.
Fourteen artists* from the Czech Republic and Germany approach the topic in a variety of ways, icluding sculpture, painting, photography, video and performance. The spectrum ranges from admiration for the beauty and abilities of animals to symbolic use. The artworks convey meanings such as establishing a mutual relationship and finding one's own identity by confronting otherness. At the same time, they warn against the critical threat and abuse of animals.

When the Portico Library first opened in 1806, minutes from the first board meeting tell us that the library sold “soups, tea, coffee, jellies, ices, orgeat and lemonade”.
There is scant documentation on the kitchen in the library. What exists along with the building’s oral history tells us that eating and drinking have been at the heart of the library’s culture. The Portico library has been part of a rich and diverse history of food in the North West.
The library's collection contains 19th century volumes that give us an insight into colonial encounters with global majority cultures through dining and food. It offers glimpses into a slice of Manchester's history at a time when it was becoming an industrial powerhouse. As a time capsule, the collection gives us material to reflect on current ideas and practices around the production of food, its preparation and consumption.

DINING IN explores the future of food and dining at The Portico. What recipes are preserved? What dishes should be introduced to the cafe’s menu?
In a city that speaks over 200 languages, with a multitude of cultures and traditions. How is this present in the kitchen’s offering today and in the future?
And as we face the climate emergency, how does the kitchen procure and prepare food ethically and responsibly? How do we continue our cultural food traditions?
Over the next few weeks, DINING IN invites you to enjoy stories on the plate, around the table, and in print.
Spend time with an exhibition of contemporary artists who engage with ideas about what we eat, where we eat, and who we eat with, curated in response to the collection.
Explore the books that have fed the exhibition and the program that surrounds it.

Food is a powerful social network binding New Yorkers to each other and with countless others across the globe. The city's raucous restaurant scene; its ubiquitous street food; the current activist efforts to source food locally; the world's largest food market in Hunts Point; and the artists, thinkers, and designers who are imagining new sustainable ways to relate to food, will all be part of Food in New York: Bigger Than the Plate.

The exhibition will examine the challenging nodes and networks of the city’s food systems. Anchored around issues of sustainability, labor justice, and equitable access to food, the show will explore the ways in which artists and designers are developing solutions to these global and local challenges. First developed at London's Victoria and Albert Museum and now adapted and updated to look at eating and food systems in the Big Apple, Food in New York: Bigger Than the Plate is an invitation to feast for a more equitable and exciting future.

Das Museum geht nach Draußen. „Out of the box“ befasst sich mit tiefgehenden Fragen der Ernährung, wirft ein Blitzlicht auf individuelle Kaufentscheidungen, aber auch auf Ressourcenverbrauch im globalen Kontext. Spielerisch werden Traditionen erforscht und überlegt, was eine „Solidargemeinschaft“ bedeutet. Nahrungsmittel-Technologie und -forschung schlägt eine Brücke zu Kunst und Kultur. Das alles „leichtbeinig“, alle Sinne inspirierend, die Neugier und den Forscherdrang herausfordernd.
Das mobile Museum gliedert sich in vier Themenbereiche.
„Was essen wir heute?“ befragt unser Einkaufsverhalten. Sind wir, was wir essen? Was beeinflusst unsere Entscheidungen, wenn es um´s Essen geht?
„Wer formt unseren Geschmack?“ thematisiert, warum industrielle Produkte so aussehen, wie sie es tun.
„Wer sitzt mit am Tisch?“ diskutiert Rituale, Tischsitten und Gemeinschaften.
„Wie leben wir morgen?“ legt schließlich Ideen für ein gutes Leben (und Essen) in der Zukunft auf den Tisch. Verschiedene Stimmen schildern ihre Wünsche an eine nachhaltige Zukunft, und in einem Ressourcenspiel trifft man alltägliche aber wichtige Entscheidungen.
Doch bevor „Out of the Box“ in die Quartiere wandert, kann es im Museum angeschaut und ausprobiert werden.
Kuratorinnen: Dr. Isabel Greschat, Cora Schönemann
Gestaltung: Tiedemann/ Lahaye, Ulm
In die mobile Ausstellung integriert finden sich künstlerische Werke und Impulse u. a. von honey & bunny, Christian Jankowski, Uli Westphal und Heidemarie Ziebandt.
Das Projekt wird vom Land Baden-Württemberg im Programm „Kunst trotz Abstand“ gefördert.

Participating artists: Kain Karawahn, Dieter Krieg, Janine Mackenroth, Hans van Meeuwen, Charlotte Mumm, Sigmar Polke, Thomas Rentmeister, Mona Schäfer, Barbara Schroeder, Elfie Semotan, Stih & Schnock, Alix Stadtbäumer, Daniel Theiler, Guido Weggenmann, Uli Westphal

The potato is at once mysterious and banal, both individually grown and cultivated en masse to ultimately be "curated" for display on supermarket shelves. It evokes irony and subversion and symbolizes strength in multiple forms. It has been instrumental for ideological causes and continues to be a source of cultural and national identity to this day. The potato nourishes in many ways, and yet not all of the dishes and processes in which it is utilized are fully appreciated. It is and remains an apple (of the earth) of discord.

Diverse themes are contained and concealed within the artistic contemplation of the potato - art, creativity, and networks, the treatment of the everyday and the banal, the relationships between humans, the earth, and the environment, the literal incorporation of energy, and perspectives on national narratives.

The museum is dedicating an exhibition to the potato, which while including brief historical digressions, will otherwise focus on artistic perspectives.

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Beteiligte Künstler*innen: Kain Karawahn, Dieter Krieg, Janine Mackenroth, Hans van Meeuwen, Charlotte Mumm, Sigmar Polke, Thomas Rentmeister, Mona Schäfer, Barbara Schroeder, Elfie Semotan, Stih & Schnock, Alix Stadtbäumer, Daniel Theiler, Guido Weggenmann, Uli Westphal

Die Kartoffel erscheint uns geheimnisvoll und zugleich banal, individuell gewachsen und massenhaft kultiviert und für den Verkauf „kuratiert“. Sie bietet Anlass zur Ironie, zur Subversion und symbolisiert Stärke in mehrfacher Weise. Sie wurde instrumentalisiert für ideologische Anliegen und wirkt bis heute identitätsstiftend für Kulturen und Nationen. Sie nährt auf vielfältige Weise und doch wird sie nicht in allen Gerichten und Verarbeitungen wertgeschätzt. Sie ist und bleibt ein Zank(erd)apfel.

In ihrer künstlerischen Betrachtung verbergen und bündeln sich vielfältige Themen, wie: Kunst, Kreativität und Netzwerke, der Umgang mit Alltäglichem und Banalem, die Beziehungen zwischen Mensch, Erde und Umwelt, die Einverleibung von Kraft, und der Blick auf nationale Helden und Erzählungen.

Das Museum widmet diesem Nahrungsmittel eine Ausstellung mit kurzen historischen Exkursen zu einer ansonsten rein künstlerischen Annäherung.

This year's edition of the Brno Art Open Biennial is part of Brno's celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Johann Gregor Mendel, the Augustinian monk who discovered the laws of heredity. It aims to commemorate the monk as a complex personality and to encompass, at least in part, the breadth of his multidisciplinary scientific research, which, in addition to plant breeding and crossbreeding, also included meteorological and beekeeping activities. Some of the artworks will be placed where Mendel's historical discoveries took place or were presented (the Old Brno Augustinian Monastery, the school in Jánská Street), and also in the village of Hynčice, the place of Mendel's birth.

The curators Milan Mikuláštík and Milan Kreuzzieger have approached domestic and foreign artists who are engaged in bio-art for this year's edition. Bio-art is an artistic movement that combines scientific and artistic approaches in a radical way, engaging with biological (often unstable and dynamically changing) materials and living organisms and leaving a large space for experimentation. The connection between artistic and scientific imagination brings a new and enriching perspective on important social phenomena and opens up the discussion on contemporary ethical issues.

Invitation to Brno Art Open 2022 was accepted by Slovenian artist Saša Spačal, Kuai Shen from Ecuador, Uli Westphal from Germany, Slovak Tomas Gabzdil Libertini, living in the Netherlands - as well as local artists Anna Hulačová and Jiří Suchánek. All of them created new works for the streets and parks of Brno.

Saša Spačal, a leading representative of Slovenian bio-art, has created a multimedia installation inspired by Mendel's famous greenhouse where hybridisation experiments were carried out. The repository of the aspiring hybrid is an archive, a small museum exhibition in the shape of a garden greenhouse, which will be located in the garden of the Villa Löw-Beer.

Kuai Shen has been researching insect life for a long time. His art projects use sophisticated audiovisual installations and explore through contemporary technologies the relationship between human society and the behaviour of ants as social insects. In Crossing, Kuai Shen focused on the study of ants in Hynčice, Johann Gregor Mendel's home village. He confronted the data collected with the life of ants in the rainforest of South America. The research in Hynčice was carried out in collaboration with leading Czech myrmecologists, Klara and Pavel Bezděčková from the Museum of the Highlands in Jihlava. Its installation will be placed in the park behind the House of Art on Malinovského náměstí.

In the spirit of Johann Gregor Mendel's world-famous experiments, German artist Uli Westphal has created a photographic series of pairs of distinct pea varieties. The photographs, which were taken using a specially adapted microscope, are displayed as large banners in various locations in Brno and also in Hynčice.

The pair of sculpted beehives was created for Brno Art Open by artist Anna Hulačová. They will be placed and inhabited in the grounds of the Augustinian Monastery on Mendel Square, where Johann Gregor Mendel kept various species of bees and tried to crossbreed them.

Experimental artist Jiri Y. Suchánek is presenting a large-scale interactive installation that responds to changes in wind and sunlight. The levitating object is both a weather station and a musical instrument on which the wind "plays". Suchánek's Probe Y is mounted on the facade of the school building on Jánská Street, where Gregor Mendel first publicly presented his groundbreaking discoveries in 1865.

Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny, who lives in Rotterdam, explores new possibilities for contemporary sculpture and design through natural processes and contemporary technologies. At the centre of Tomas Libertiny's attention are bees, which often become literally "co-authors" and contribute significantly to the final shape of his works. For Brno Art Open 2022, he transformed fragments of the honeycomb into a monumental sculptural object based on the shape of a gateway in its overall morphology. It will be placed in the Koliště Park behind the House of Art on Malinovské náměstí.

The exhibition will introduce Gregor Mendel not only as a scientist, but also as a man who, even two hundred years after his birth, can inspire contemporary artists. Young creators respond to the mental turn caused by the global ecological awakening, which makes them think about the power that tends to organize life both at the macro-level of the environment, human communities, and at the micro-level of cells.

Works by Kenneth Armitage, Nicholas Battye, Oliver Beer, Lynn Chadwick, Tracey Emin, George Fullard, F.E McWilliam, David Musgrave, Morag Myerscough, Harold Offeh, Celia Pym, Paula Rego, Laura Such, John Walter and Uli Westphal

For three years, Firstsite in Colchester, Essex has been one of the Arts Council Collection’s National Partners along with Sunderland Culture and Newlyn Gallery and the Exchange, Cornwall. This is Firstsite’s final exhibition in the programme and has been made in response to the gallery’s ‘Holiday Fun’ programme.
Firstsite’s Holiday Fun programme (FHF) is a radical response to food poverty in school holidays (‘Holiday Hunger’) in Colchester. The programme, which has been running for 5 years, celebrates the positive impact of creativity on self-worth, problem-solving and mental wellbeing, welcoming families to Firstsite to enjoy a free meal, sport, artist-designed activities and the sense of safety and community generated by the gallery.
This exhibition has been curated by the curatorial and learning teams at Firstsite, who have worked together to select artworks which go some way to represent their hopes and dreams for the programme, along with being interesting and inspiring for people to creatively respond to. Half of Firstsite’s mosaic gallery will be transformed into a making space for the duration of the show, with a variety of drop- in and bookable activities available related to the work on display. Firstsite will also be running specific workshops for attendees of the Holiday Fun programme.

10,000 years ago a series of chance mutations caused an inconspicuous weed, Teosinte, to become the ancestor of corn. Millennia of selection by humans have yielded dramatic changes to corn. Farmers developed a multitude of cultivars of varying shape, color, flavor and culinary use, each adapted to the culture, geography and climate of the places they were grown. Today, the US Corn Belt, an area roughly the size of California, almost exclusively grows a single type of corn called yellow dent. Nearly all of the seed is genetically modified and intellectual property, controlled by the few agrochemical corporations that rule the global seed market. Most of the harvest is turned into ethanol or animal feed to produce cheap meat in concentrated feeding operations. Just a fraction of the harvest is directed towards human consumption, primarily in the form of sweeteners, particularly High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Uli Westphal documents disappearing crop diversity and the things replacing it. Zea mays, Wet Collection combines photographs and found objects into a glowing spatial installation that traces the transformation of corn.

The Cultivar Series: Zea mays I
Corn cultivars from all parts of the world. Photographed 2018 at the CIMMYT seed bank in Texcoco, Mexico

Suicide Soda
High Fructose Corn Syrup based soda. Collected 2018 in Providence, RI, USA

Synopsis
Teosinte in Bio-Ethanol

The installation is visible from the street. For a closer look and appointments please contact info@uliwestphal.de or info@berlin-weekly.com

Special Thanks to RISD Nature Lab, David Kim, Peter Rogers, Lucia Monge, Julia van den Hout, William Myers, MU Artspace, Angelique Spaninks, CIMMYT, Dr. Denise Costich, Dr. Martha Willcox, Dennis Baldwin, Native Seeds/SEARCH, Liz Fairchild, Nicholas Garber and Sheryl Joy and everyone who supported me with these projects along the way.