what we want is what you want

Barking Dogs United

May 16 - June 28, 2008

Schalter is pleased to announce what we want is what you want. The exhibition features an installation, Skatefloor, by Barking Dogs United - an artist duo founded by Israeli artist Naomi Tereza Salmon, and Greek artist Nikos Arvanitis in 2005. This is the first time their work will be presented in Berlin.

For what we want is what you want, Barking Dogs United have replaced the floor of Schalter with one made up entirely of skateboards. All the boards remain functional, complete with grip tape, trucks, and wheels, creating an unstable and ever-shifting ground to stand on. Quite literally, the boards give and roll slightly with viewers as they move through the space, inviting a physical sense of insecurity to enter the work.

Barking Dogs United's work is often trained on questions about art's role and function in contemporary culture. Do we view the artist as a social activist dedicated to articulating society's ills, or an entertainer? What relationship does the artist have to the art market, galleries and audience? Who can or should we answer to, and to what end? Salmon and Arvanitis locate their work in the shuffle between order and chaos, self-promotion and humility, individual prerogative and global responsibility. And, as the exhibition title suggests, the work invites us to have it both ways, without offering an explicit answer or question.

Nikos Arvanitis was born in 1979 in Athens, Greece and has lived and worked in Germany since 2004. He studied in Vienna, Athens and Weimar. Naomi Tereza Salmon was born in 1965 in Jerusalem, Israel, and has lived and worked in Germany since 1991. Both artists have been featured numerously in both national and international exhibitions.