For Circulating Copies, IMAI – Inter Media Art Institute will present a selection of video works from its own collection in dialog with newly commissioned works in public spaces throughout Düsseldorf and beyond from 5 April to 5 May 2024. The IMAI emerged from the activities of 235 Media, whose founders initially set out to find platforms and distribution channels for new video works in the 1980s, and established a programme of international video artists in the process. In addition to exhibition venues and TV stations, they also focused on public spaces and realised screenings in clubs or temporary architectures. Drawing on these origins of the collection, Circulating Copies is an exhibition and event programme where video art is shared and discussed in public institutional spaces, such as the facade of Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, or Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, but also in subway stations, an ice cream parlour, and senior living facilities.

The presentation of a selection of historical works from the collection emphasises local knowledge about the collection as well as its historical and subcultural significance. Meanwhile, the invited artists have collaborated with other groups, initiatives, and individuals in the city to develop and realise their new works, including Altern unter dem Regenbogen, Diakonie Düsseldorf, as well as the owners of a solarium and café, and volunteer performers.

Given IMAI’s history and its connections with punk and underground movements from the 1980s and 1990s, the programme of Circulating Copies focuses on the connections between music, dance, and ecstasy. It deals with alternative states of consciousness, moments of euphoria, and pleasure, but also exhaustion, fear, and amnesia. Based on works from the collection such as ELA EIS’ Miracle Whip [Befreit], 1979—film source for a legendary live performance in Düsseldorf's Villa Engelhard in which forms of intoxication always went hand in hand with feminist self-assertion and emancipation—various forms of transgression and resistance are examined. The video works will be temporarily supplemented by performances, concerts, and talks. In order to raise awareness of the number and variety of playback devices in public space, all works in the programme will be shared on existing monitors, projection screens, LED walls, or smartphones.

Event locations

Booklet Circulating Copies

The programme also encompasses satellite projects, such as the exhibition lung time, long time continuuuum!!! (a conver-something) by Simnikiwe Buhlungu, realised in collaboration with KIT – Kunst im Tunnel, and the screening series Paradise Tossed: Sister City in the IMAI video lounge at NRW-Forum.

Artists IMAI Collection: Julian Álvarez, Dara Birnbaum, Constance DeJong & Ken Feingold, ELA EIS, Barbara Hlali, Aki Nakazawa, Raskin

Artists New Commissions: Constance DeJong, Mira Mann, Dudu Quintanilha, Dani and Sheilah ReStack, Class Prof. Danica Dakić: Miriam Bornewasser, Gabriel Dreyer, Beate Gärtner, Pius K., Lucien Liebecke, Qingsong Meng, Hyejin Park, Kaya Pfaff (with Julia Diệp My Feige), Insa Schülting, Bela Stöttner, Naomi Snip (with Tara Olsen) and Matthias Neuenhofer

Artists Satellite Projects: Dara Birnbaum, Simnikiwe Buhlungu, Dani and Sheilah ReStack, Valie Export, Pamela Z, Jiajia Zhang

Cooperation partners: Altern unterm Regenbogen, Diakonie Düsseldorf / Dorte Kretschmar,  Stadt:Kollektiv / Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Eiscafé Stefan, HafenKunstKino, Internationales Frauen Film Fest, KIT – Kunst im Tunnel, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle Winterthur, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Kunstverein München, Rheinterrasse Düsseldorf, Salon des Amateurs / Weird Space, Schnitzelhaus am Oberbilker Markt

Team: Nele Kaczmarek, Darija Šimunović (curators), Jonathan Rösen (exhibition management) and Linnea Semmerling (initiation)

Supported by Kunststiftung NRW, Kunst- und Kulturstiftung der Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf, Sparkassen-Kulturstiftung Rheinland