KAI DIKHAS - Place To See
Gallery for Contemporary Art of the Roma and Sinti in the AUFBAU HAUS
Since 2011, the art gallery Kai Dikhas at Aufbau Haus in Berlin has been presenting contemporary European Roma and Sinti artists, many of whom are internationally known. The gallery is a "place of seeing", as reflected in its Romani name, and offers a platform for constructive dialogue on equal terms between the Roma / Sinti peoples and mainstream society. Moritz Pankok, founder and curator of Gallery Kai Dikhas, had previously organized exhibitions and concerts for creative artists, and also assisted visiting curators, all of whom were members of the ethnic minority. Mi-Kyung Jun is gallery manager.
Exhibitions of contemporary Roma art such as "Second Site" in London in 2006 or the first pavilion for Roma art at the 2007 Venice Biennale, entitled "Paradise Lost" presented Roma artists to an international audience. Besides the Roma Museum in Brno (Czech Republic), which doesn’t specialize solely in the visual arts, and before the opening of Gallery Kai Dikhas, there were no permanent institutions which presented Sinti and Roma art to a wider public. However, the Kai Dikhas gallery now presents nearly all internationally active artists from those peoples. They utilize contemporary art forms such as performance, installations, videos, photos, graphics, drawings, sculptures, and large-format images – sometimes ironically – as a means to confront the discrimination and the stereotypes they encounter almost daily.
Furthermore, the gallery concept is enhanced through cooperation with the independent label, Asphalt Tango Records in Berlin, which is successful in publishing Roma music CDs and books about "antiziganism".
The gallery works closely with representatives of autonomous Roma organizations and from the start has the support of Romani Rose, chairman of the Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma, who wrote the preface to the first catalogue and attended the first exhibition opening. Meanwhile, the documentation center and five other Sinti / Roma organizations have set up branches at Aufbau Haus. Aspe and RomnoKher operate the educational institution RomAs and also with the gallery Kunstraum Dikhas Dur, where their collection is presented and events are held. Through the patient work of Moritz Pankok during the past four years, Aufbau Haus has become a unique place in Germany where Roma organizations cooperate with institutions of mainstream society.
Exhibitions of contemporary Roma art such as "Second Site" in London in 2006 or the first pavilion for Roma art at the 2007 Venice Biennale, entitled "Paradise Lost" presented Roma artists to an international audience. Besides the Roma Museum in Brno (Czech Republic), which doesn’t specialize solely in the visual arts, and before the opening of Gallery Kai Dikhas, there were no permanent institutions which presented Sinti and Roma art to a wider public. However, the Kai Dikhas gallery now presents nearly all internationally active artists from those peoples. They utilize contemporary art forms such as performance, installations, videos, photos, graphics, drawings, sculptures, and large-format images – sometimes ironically – as a means to confront the discrimination and the stereotypes they encounter almost daily.
Furthermore, the gallery concept is enhanced through cooperation with the independent label, Asphalt Tango Records in Berlin, which is successful in publishing Roma music CDs and books about "antiziganism".
The gallery works closely with representatives of autonomous Roma organizations and from the start has the support of Romani Rose, chairman of the Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma, who wrote the preface to the first catalogue and attended the first exhibition opening. Meanwhile, the documentation center and five other Sinti / Roma organizations have set up branches at Aufbau Haus. Aspe and RomnoKher operate the educational institution RomAs and also with the gallery Kunstraum Dikhas Dur, where their collection is presented and events are held. Through the patient work of Moritz Pankok during the past four years, Aufbau Haus has become a unique place in Germany where Roma organizations cooperate with institutions of mainstream society.
Moritz Pankok, October 2015