How are images and spaces ordered, confined and held together? What Holds explores two artistic approaches in a site-specific constellation of works by Billie Clarken and Yoel Pytowski. While Clarken examines how the meanings of so-called ‘cursed images’¹ can be altered by the surfaces on which they are displayed, Pytowski demonstrates how architectural interventions affect the perception and memory of spaces.

For What Holds, Yoel Pytowski develops an installation in response to the existing architecture of the Moltkerei Werkstatt. His practice adds structural elements, levels or thresholds to spaces, while the materials used bear traces of their previous existence in earlier installations. Architecture appears not as a fixed shell but as a condition that is continually altered through (re)construction and dismantling.

Billie Clarken’s series Chewing Tongue likewise brings together different temporal layers. For these works, Clarken assembles found photographs whose original context has been lost and places them within a new material context. The artist prints the photographs, which appear at once enigmatic and familiar, onto pink foam and encloses them in protective cases made for DVDs. The familiar case becomes a material boundary. It preserves, controls and restricts access to these images, thereby emphasising the shifting nature of meaning.
What Holds thus refers less to a stable form of support than to the precarious condition of what is only temporarily held together.

¹ A ‘cursed image’ is a photograph or digital image that evokes a sense of mystery, unease or bewilderment. It is typically of poor quality or depicts illogical situations or bizarre content, prompting viewers to wonder why the image exists at all or how such a scenario came about.

Billie Clarken (b. 1992, Fairfax, Virginia) lives and works in Berlin. She studied at Virginia Commonwealth University and at UdK Berlin with Monica Bonvicini. Clarken’s practice explores pop culture and memory, often using found images and consumer objects. Her work has been shown at WENTRUP, Berlin (2026), General Expenses, Mexico City (2025), wanda, Warsaw (2024), and Number 1 Main Road, Berlin (2022).

Yoel Pytowski (b. 1986, Rehovot, Israel) lives and works in Brussels. He studied drawing at ENSAV La Cambre and Fine Arts at Sint-Lukas, both in Brussels. His site-specific installations intervene in existing architecture and explore spatial memory. His work has been shown at Kunstverein Siegen (2026), Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, Paris (2025), and Kunsthal Extra City, Antwerp (2024), among others.