SHORT WAVES \L CAPITAL SEDUCTION ld Bussel on KP Brehmer at Raven Row, highly commendable survey of works by KP hiner (1938-1997), dating from the ealy 60s the early ‘Bo ibiliy 1 engage Foncrete reflections on the abstract nature of alist modernity through an encounter with a ry of work, which ly complex and varied Bsservedly and unambiguously picks apart Subject, The exhibition, succinctly ara onjoined terra three floors ofthe i make up Raven Row. poses the fundamental ton of Brelimer's practice: How do you mak ble the uneepresemtable relation that is capital answer of course, is that you cant, You can oaly witness ts conditions and effects, precisely what the exhibition atemprs to demon strate, by fi 17: Apr aalizing cegime of "Capitalist Reais England Museum, grounding Brehmer’s “sociology of ng enquiry into the naturalizing and (By eon rast, one could vist the Bank away, to encounter another rep just a few minute resentation of the relfed mystfications of capital abeit seen through the “official” historiography of its monetary and fiscal machinations. » Brehmer’ locality in Cold War Fest according Berlin and the ends of West Germany's “Economic Miracle”; second, with the eclipse in the West of he Keynesian welfare sate and untversal politcal struggle against the ascendency of neoliberal slobalization; tied, the relations berween Pop art, Minimalist, and Conceptual att currents, the neo-avant-gaede and postmodernism, with the inception of what philosopher Peter Osborne calls ‘he contemporary” Brehmer, who tained asa graphic designer, was associated with Capitalist Realism —the mid "bos Dusseldorf and Berlin based style, assoclated with artists such as Richter, Polke, Lueg, and Kustner, then later under the aegis of gallerst René Block ~ whose particular position wasa parodic take on American Pop art and socialist realism. A selection of Brekimer's works from this time include an arrangement of mock displays and advertisements that mimic the then new consumerist style ofthe era, with thelr vivid representations of commodities, lifestyle adverts, women in undergarments, and Berlin promotional material Ic was just after this moment, however, that Brelime’s practice transitioned from an ambiva lent mediation of populist imagery toa critical mediation of systems, a move From “the intensely ized brig the inform ane! flashy Pop foreground to nal and communicational back ground. ‘60s, eral this sociological turn. Here Breuer oduction belonging to the postage stamp and those belonging to the Fine at edition, Stamp images from the Deutsches Reich tothe Vietcong are enlarged, copied or adjusted” as image ready-mades, To quote Brehimer: ;Briefnarken” (Stamps), from the late toys with the modes ofr “L wanted to relate the collector of fine art eather directly to the trivial world, I wanted to pt print collection as an especially perverted form of art consumerism Information and communication are brought Into the foreground with works from the series IWeale Landschaft (Ideal Landscape, 1968-70) which uses film, prin, and a laminated eleva ton model wo investigate the “naturalization ofa re, the constructed-ness of landscape, is associative color spectrum, and the bourgeois Inmaginaries that unify the social reat fein ns ofthis Part of the making visible of the abstraction that is capital the making visual of ~ what cura tor Doreen Mende calls ~ “notation systems," commonplace, embedded structures of repre sentation such as flags, maps, graphs, charts and diagrams, all of which Brehimer employed to express contemporary class, race, and geopolitical capitalist relations, These depictions are inseribed with defamiliarized data sets, typography, and coo; codified tools we are asked to decipher cor responding to the daily reifieations we are made totake for reality, But Brelier was well aware ofthe deteritoriaizing procedures of eapita ‘Making visible isnot a simple act of exposing the musk of ideology because, as he knew, there Is nothing bein * (Real Capita-Prodietion, 1974) looks at the relation bbeween financial wcalth and production \. “Realkapital-Produktio ‘machines, raw materials~ where a black-and ‘white text pane is aligned with three other black and-white panels with graphs. The text proclaims that the West is controled "by sixty combined, {niluential political and business groups. The ‘this work illustrate these remaining panels political and business groups’ combined sale pra fits, profit rates, and technical knowledge, Masta ‘en here, however, does not involve figures oF ‘numbers but rather lant gestural swooshes of black pai, corgued onto the right-angled graph background ofeach panel, halingly defiant in their contrasting abstraction and condemnationThis procesdure of reinscription or remapping is present throughout the exhibition. With works such as "Kultur" (Culture, 1974) of "“Ausreichen versorgte Telle der Well” (Parts ofthe World with Sufficient Resources, 1975), map ofthe solar system is inscribed withthe word “eulture™ in the former, while in the later, «partially erased world map depicts only states with sustain able natural resources, aggressively illustrated in bronze paint, leaving the rest in matte black darkness, “Korrektur der Nationalfarben, gems sen an der Vermbgensvertellung” (Correction of National Colours, Measured by Distribution of Wealth, 1972), takes the West German flag and ‘relstibutes” its bands of black, red, and yellow Jex of wealth, a telling portrait of the national iconographiy of a state that, Jonger exists ‘One of Brehmer’s best known, and arguably, most engaging works is "Seele und Gefabl eines Arbelters, Whitechapel Version” (Soul and Feel ings of a Worker, Whitechapel Version, 1978) used om a study of male factory workers’ emo: dons that were recorded as ranging ftom “very happy’ to “neutral” wo “feat” This is notated wo large landseape-format canvases. This work, which has different iterations including a musical score, shows us in highly “de-roman. tictzed" form, the foundational antagonisns between capital and labor and the immiseration they produce. Describing this piece in her essay to for the exhibition, Kerstin Stakemeler argues that Brehmer “does not introduce an artistic expression ofthe capitalistic industralisation| of culture but an expropriation of the eukural social violence that ate aestheticised J [oelere] iis eis oc industealisation as such ~ that, {inthis indusrilisation comes under attack Keeping this in mind, i {sno surprise that Klaus Peter Brehmer ehose to be known as ‘comradeship with the Kommunistische Parte (Communist Party), which had been in West Germany a decade before. Brehier’s KP" from the mid-Gos onvatd, in “unsentimental” objects, pictures, and films, por tray in maps, charts, and geapls a global stern ‘of domination, a socal rel the struggles set against t, mobilizing a polit «ized counter-realism deployed by the sme but mit produces, and ‘de-funetionalized” administrative tools as enpital 1 See Mink Fisher combuton ne exhibition pl Quoted fom "KP emer, Test tein Beyond The 5 See Kerin Serer contrition ia the exh publ ato "EP Helmer Ripa, A Proc of