Jay Chung’s and Q Takeki Maeda’s solo exhibition at Künstlerhaus Stuttgart contains a series of nine interrelated works. The two Berlin-based artists are known for their photographic and textile works that sound out the subtle borders between reality and fiction. Widening the focus on aspects of everyday life, Chung and Maeda tie in with the form language and media reflection of the late 1960s Concept Art.

Taking up two characters from the popular juvenile book series The Hardy Boys, Chung and Maeda created a photo series to approach a number of places in Mexico. The book series was published between 1927 and 1979 by pseudonymous writer F.W. Dixon who in fact was a product of a commercial writing workshop. The photo series depicts places without recognizable staging by the artists accompanied by texts that speculatively explores the narrative charging of the places. Chung’s and Maeda’s second work consists of a screenplay of the TV show Gilmore Girls that was created on the occasion of a talent competition advertised by Disney. In their screenplay, the artists tried to transfer the existing style and content of the show into a new story. Inevitably, there are differences that highlight the original language and behavior of the characters. The third work is an announcement of an upcoming project at Copenhagen, an oversized, accessible Lousi Vuitton handbag.

The installation at Künstlerhaus exhibits the objects in a way that keeps their status unclear. They are neither a comment on cultural artifacts nor were they created to fit into particular genres. Rather they were put into an interim state – between fiction and dilettantism, between screenplay and object – and relate to each other. The stage-like exhibition design highlights the narrative character of the works. The exhibition can be visited during the nights when the unlit exhibition space is shady and semi-dark.