BETWEEN CONFORMITY AND RESISTANCE

Almut Linde

Understanding Almut Linde’s work is about recognizing the right questions. Whose voices, amongst the resounding masses, are really being heard? How is safety defined in a society in which our rights seem to be attacked at every corner? What drives people to destruct, what are the creative forces behind rage? Can the result of repetitive alienated work also create composition?

The exhibition Between Conformity and Resistance brings together three early and progressive works that set the tone for Linde’s artistic process as early as the 1990s, amongst which one participatory work is reactivated and juxtaposed with its earlier forms. During that time, Linde was already asking questions about the social and institutional conditions of people far removed from the ecosystem of art, making their actions a fundamental part of her practice. Actions not for the sake of actions, but to create works as progressive formulations of inherently generative forces – and direct attention to blind spots in perception.

The essence of her work lies precisely in the inclusion of processes and people in extreme existential or precarious situations. Linde reveals the unconscious structures of the social system using methods of artistic production. Anonymous participants from seemingly invisible spaces are given a voice that’s projected into a space created for visibility: the White Cube. On its walls, fragments of their unvarnished reality are laid bare.

By deliberately handing over part of the production to others, significant interpersonal and aesthetic forms are created. These forms are what Linde focuses on. Drawing from the concept of a ‘holistic’ form in the tradition of minimalist thinking, where its aesthetic complexity is absorbed instantly by the viewer, she extends its scope integrating the context – causes and consequences – into the artwork. By taking herself out of the initial shaping process, mirroring a minimalist approach in which minimal actions generate maximal effects and, in line with conceptual art, only setting the frame or concept precisely, Linde invites questioning about the conflicts between individual autonomy and social constraints – or between conformity and resistance.

From 1997 to 2001, Linde noticed numerous headrests, in various conditions, along the tracks of the Hamburg Hbf - Ahrensburg S-Bahn commuter line. The headrests came from the 1st class compartments of the S-Bahn, which could also be used outside rush hours with discount tickets issued to welfare recipients. These acts of vandalism led to the 1st class being abolished by Deutsche Bahn in Hamburg's S-Bahn trains in 2002. Pinpointing the involuntary creative power of destructive rage and alienation, the now-individualized, originally mass-produced objects have been photographed and collected by the artist in the series Dirty – Minimal #16.1 – Headrests Individualized by Vandalism (1997-2001).

In Dirty Minimal #9.1 – Action-Painting / Postal Logistics Center (1992), Linde recorded one hour of the endless movements of logistics, who tirelessly run and walk in a confined space, by simply laying out paper on the floor of the main postal distribution center. Over the course of an hour, the footprints and tire impressions of workers and machines emerged as a kind of painterly gesture; functional working processes determined the composition.

In 1994, Linde commissioned the market research institute Infas GmbH to draw up an official questionnaire and conduct a survey on personal well-being and safety. The survey was carried out by Infas employees in public places in Hamburg. The randomly selected participants marked their answers on a transparent slide over the survey sheet and connected them with a line. This resulted in a series of individual drawings, collected in Dirty Minimal #12.1 – State of Being. Although each individual slide is unique, the overall result is compliant. A seemingly infinite, uniform array of zigzag curves conceal the individual, who appears in opinion polls only as a quantifiable result.

Now, in 2025, Almut Linde will hand out this questionnaire again to visitors of the exhibition. The resulting transparent sheets will be hung up opposite those from 1994, highlighting how the network of our social systems and relationships to each other has been woven in the course of 30 years, and how our feelings of safety – those lines on a transparent sheet – are perhaps no sturdier than a loose thread.

For Linde, “the system” does not exist as an independent entity. There are people and norms that configure a system which is everchanging, as social rules are being negotiated. Between Conformity and Resistance exists on the playing field of this discussion, inviting viewers to position themselves within the grey area of its dichotomy.

Gallery Weekend: Friday, May 2nd, 6 – 9 pm / Saturday, May 3rd, 11 am – 7 pm / Sunday, May 4th, 11 am – 6 pm

Duration: May 6 – May 29, 2025

Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday 12 am – 6 pm

Almut Linde, born in Lübeck in 1965, lives and works in Hamburg and Kiel. She is a professor and vice president of the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel and completed her doctorate in 2016 with her artist theory Radical Beauty. Form and cognition. In 2022, her work was awarded the Paula Modersohn Becker Prize. Since 2022, the audio installation DIRTY MINIMAL #45.1.1 – Eine Andere Welt / Another World is part of the collection of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, where it was shown publicly from 2022 - 2024 in the collection presentation Something new, something old, something desired. Solo exhibitions include Hypercultural Passsenger, Studio Veddel, Hamburg (DE); Temporary Wholeness, Spaced Out, Kerkow, DE (2019); Radical Beauty, i.a. at Drawing Room, Hamburg (2016) & Kunstverein Ruhr, Essen, DE (2015) & Kunstpalais Erlangen, DE (2014) & Chapter, Cardiff, GB-WLS & DA2, Salamanca, ES & Kunstverein Braunschweig DE (2013); Existential, Oberbeck-Gesellschaft Lübeck, DE (2012). Selected group exhibitions include Dem Himmel so nah, Kunsthalle Emden (upcoming 2025); Collapse Is Not A Destination, Kunstverein Göttingen (upcoming 2025); Something new, something old, something desired, Hamburger Kunsthalle (2022-2024); Angst - Krisenindikator oder Überlebenstrieb?, Künstlerverein Walkmühle, Wiesbaden (2023); Homosphäre, Kunsthalle Mainz (2022); Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France (2022); Mindbombs, Kunsthalle Mannheim (2021); Die Wolken und die Wolke, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen (2020); La cara oculta de la luna, CentroCentro, Madrid (2018); Lübeck sammelt, Kunsthalle St. Annen, Lübeck, DE (2017); Psychogeographic Junction, Kunsthalle Bratislava/LAB, SK (2015); Künstlerräume 02, Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst Bremen, DE (2014); Visions. Atmospheres of Change, Marta Herford, DE (2013).

Almut Linde / Between Conformity and Resistance