Base Motive
Robert Keil and Scott Roben
01.07. – 12.08.23
Opening: 30.06.23, 17:00 – 21:00

The term “base motive” points to intentions underlying certain behaviors, perhaps concealed or even improper. Working off of the term as a shared point of reference for their collaborative exhibition, the artists Robert Keil and Scott Roben follow its linguistic components to their own root meanings in terms of architecture and movement. Through paintings and sculptures that intervene in the space of the BPA//Raum, Keil and Roben attend to the ways that literal and represented space impact and can be impacted by psychological space. To that end, indirect and contingent qualities like atmosphere and mood, as well as the role of viewers, take on heightened significance.

Robert Keil lives and works in Munich. His work in sculpture intervenes in everyday materials, found objects and infrastructures, focusing on how they are shaped by certain contexts and social meanings: for example, four-leaf clovers, roses, discarded computer towers, or methane gas. Often his interventions focus on physical aspects of these materials that persistently assert their own reality, as well as the role that they play in defining relationships between people. Keil graduated in 2019 with a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Bard College in New York and was previously a master student with Olaf Nicolai at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich. His work has been exhibited at various venues, most recently at Museum Brandhorst and Pli, Munich.

Scott Roben is an artist based in Berlin. His work in painting is driven by an attention to the medium’s tactile and affective capacities, including its ability to register physical touch and suggest virtual touch. These qualities become part of an ongoing search for threads of queer looking and knowing. Roben holds an MFA from The Milton Avery Academy of the Arts at Bard College and was a participant at BPA// Berlin program for artists in 2018. In 2022, he was a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University in the Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies. His work has been exhibited at various venues in Berlin and New York, and his writings on art have appeared in various artist monographs and publications, including Art in America, Frieze, and Texte zur Kunst.

BPA// Raum is a platform for artistic exchange. It is operated by BPA// Berlin program for artists and organized by Sophia Yvette Scherer and Anna-Lisa Scherfose.

BPA// Raum
Sophie-Gips-Höfe 
Sophienstraße 21
10178 Berlin
Enter through red passageway
Opening Times: Fri–Sat 15:00–18:00 

Photos by Eric Bell