This is the end of the world, but it always started with you
Ajamu X, Cassie Augusta Jørgensen, Sixten Hatfield, Young-jun Tak

May 17–June 16, 2024
Vernissage: Fri 17 May, 18.00–21.00
Inauguration with the artists and curator: 19.00

This is the end of the world, but it always started with you is a lyrical manifestation of time. Time, as never-ending, as always in flux. As repetition, as having the past fully there in the present with you.

The exhibition is textured with skin, iridescent lighting, monocles – all alluding to queer desire, longing, yearning, untethering moments and figures. 

The title, “This is the end of the world, but it always started with you” is picked lovingly, like a delicate flower, from the final chapter of Cassie Augusta Jørgensen’s epistolary film work, The Danish Girl Dick (2022). It is the perfect punctuation to a film that inherently refuses an ending and opens itself up to an endless loop. 

British photographer Ajamu X unveils a compelling array of photographs and archival material, spanning his prolific practice since the 1980s. Here, the photograph is presented as tangible erotic matter, perfected in the darkroom and imbued with literal and metaphorical processes. Through each click and whirl, time collapses, unraveling intimate presence.

The Parisian lesbian bar, Le Monocle, established in the early twentieth century by Lulu de Montparnasse is revisited by Sixten Hatfield through a series of gouache paintings, an abstract mural, and a site specific installation. Through repetition and emphasis, history is imprinted on the walls of the gallery, not merely as a reference but as alive and open to abstraction.  

Young-jun Tak’s video Wish You a Lovely Sunday (2021) boldly juxtaposes scenes from a church (Kirche am Südstern) and a queer club (SchwuZ) in Berlin. Here, bodies are immersed in the melodies of Bach’s symphonies, bending, and twisting in rhythmic (dis)harmony, mirroring ways in which queerness bends itself in everyday architecture. 

This is the end of the world, but it always started with you unfurls time and embraces infinity.

Curator: Tawanda Appiah

Image: Ajamu X, Self-Portrait on Chez Lounge, 1998.