In summer 2014, three years ago, we opened our exhibition space in Berlin - Charlottenburg with a solo show by performance artist Simon Pfeffel parsing behaviour. We are delighted to finally announce our second solo show with the artist handeln ist sterben lernen at galerie burster: Simon Pfeffel (*1985 in Nürnberg, Germany), stipendiary of the federal state Baden-Württemberg and city of Salzburg, Austria, as well as awardee of this year’s art-in-architecture project of the university hospital Heidelberg, fathoms in his performative works – which mostly take place in public space – his very own bodily and mental limits.

Once liberated from the white cube, randomly passers-by, spectators and observers can become voyeurs of Pfeffel’s longue durée performances. The basis of his performances which gain their tension and intensity through their lasting continuation, are repetitive, almost meditative actions whose origin comes from very daily, profane scenes – they are further documented in Pfeffel’s objetcs and photographies. In his solo show handeln ist sterben lernen, Pfeffel focuses explicitly on actions executed by one’s very own hand (the German term for action = Hand-lung already implies the word hand): The hand as a human, carnal tool, symbolically charged and instantaneously linked with the comprehension of our self, serves as an important medium for our sensorial capturing, understanding and experiencing of the world around us as well as it serves an an important tool to experience our (bodily) self.

Our hands communicate, sometimes consciously but very often unconsciously and hence reveal more of ourself than we actually intend to show.

Wherever there is scope, there will be actions – mostly these actions will be of short term; in Pfeffel’s performances however they are painfully persistent.