DEATH LOLZ Presents… is a multi-part project consisting of an exhibition design, series of events, and a publication, all developed in collaboration with Dan Mitchell. In his text The Age of LOLZ is Dead. Long Live DEATH LOLZ, included in an accompanying publication made by the artist, Mitchell traces a recent chain of political events that have contributed to an unprecedented present, investigating the psychological effects that take place in the everyday. He writes, “What are we to make of where we are, as we endlessly oscillate between worry and hope? I don’t mean politically, I mean personally. The state and the corporate bodies administer unreasonable violence (…) in the everyday of our lives. So our response also needs to happen in the everyday, and it also needs to be unreasonable. DEATH LOLZ is an unreasonable humor.”

Utilizing the exhibition as a ‘space of dramatization’—a continual project of the 2017 program at MINI/Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38—Mitchell has re-purposed the gallery into an event space for the duration of DEATH LOLZ Presents…, starting from the outside with a large vinyl print directly applied to the exterior window, effectively branding the space within.

Inside, a false wall rhetorically reads WHY DID YOU KILL THE LOLZ? and functions as a backdrop for weekly performances by artists, musicians, and comedians, hosted by artist Cammisa Buerhaus in character as Julia Hahn, a Special Assistant to Donald Trump in the White House, and former aide to Steve Bannon. Hahn studied philosophy the University of Chicago before becoming a writer and editor at Breitbart; a seemingly contradictory turn from liberal intellectualism to alt-right.

Mitchell’s solo exhibition ULTRA MEGA HYPE, opening midway through the project on November 26 – effectively, a show within a show – takes place in the back of the gallery and will be on display until the end of DEATH LOLZ Presents…

Dan Mitchell is based in London, UK. Recent exhibitions include Sports, 3236RLS, Catford, UK (2017); New Dead City, Oracle, Berlin, Germany (2016), and Alcoholism, Celine, Glasgow, Scotland (2016). He is currently included in the group show Theft Is Vision at LUMA Westbau, Zurich, Switzerland. Mitchell is also the publisher of Hard Mag, and co-founder of the Artist Self-Publishing Fair (ASP).

Installation by Saim Demircan, Brent Garbowski, Ida Michel, and Dan Mitchell

Text by Saim Demircan

Graphic design by Ida Michel

Exhibition photography by Yair Oelbaum

Concept and exhibition design by Dan Mitchell

Curated by Saim Demircan

Assistant: Ida Michel

Gallery Assistants: Amelie Meyer and Hiji Nam

Bar by Cammisa Buerhaus