Patrick Bailly-Maitre-Grand / Nicolas Schneider /Claudie Hunzinger …
28 Jun - 20 Oct 2013
PATRICK BAILLY-MAITRE-GRAND, NICOLAS SCHNEIDER, CLAUDIE HUNZINGER ...
Wanderung / Promenade
28 June - 20 October 2013
CEAAC and the Offenbourg Städtische Galerie are pleased to present a joint exhibition entitled Wanderung / Promenade. Bringing together 25 French and German artists in both venues, the exhibition will address the question of the relationship between walking and the mental readiness required to produce new ideas and forms.
A little over three million years ago, a group of individuals of the genus Australopithecus, part of the hominid family, became bipedal after thousands of years of evolution. Faced with a fast-changing environment, Lucy and her congeners adopted a mode of vertical movement, standing on their back legs. This change in their mode of locomotion had certain advantages. Standing, they could more easily identify potential hazards. Upright, they could reach hitherto inaccessible food. Walking on two feet, they saved their strength, quadrupeds being less energy efficient. Generally, as anthropologist and sociologist David Le Breton explains in his book In Praise of Walking, “Verticality and the integration of bipedal walking release the hands and face. The thousands of movements thus made available infinitely expanded communication skills and mankind’s room for manouevre in the environment and contributed to the development of the brain”. The bipedalism adopted by Australopithecus afarensis inspired other hominid cousins now known as homo sapiens or humans, the only species that survives to this day through adaption to this mode of movement.
Walking, mobility and nomadism are the fundamental characteristics of the human being. This mode of locomotion is primarily a matter of survival. Then, over the centuries, hunter- gatherers became explorers, gradually conquering the Earth in search of wealth, knowledge and spirituality.
Pilgrims in the Middle Ages claimed that “walking is praying with one’s feet”. Such moving meditation led to reverie, a term employed centuries later by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who saw his walks as an opportunity both to reconnect with the sensory world and to get closer to a “primitive ego”, a “natural ego”.
Today, in Western urban societies, human activities require more nervous energy than physical energy. The body is less and less in demand for its strength and sensory faculties. However, mobility and physical activities are necessary for human well-being to such an extent that in recent years walking has become one of Europe’s favourite pastimes.
While painters and writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth century were expected to perfect their knowledge of the world by touring Italy and visiting Rome, the artistic and intellectual capital, today’s artists do not hesitate to pace out reality looking for sensations that new communication and image technologies have almost stifled with their continuous stream of information.
Gathered together in a double exhibition entitled Wanderung / Promenade, French and German artists will share, through their work, their need and desire to travel the world.
Featuring : Patrick Bailly Maître-Grand, Diethard Blaudszun, Axel Bleyer, Robert Cahen, Yannick Demmerle, M. Dréa, Pierre Filliquet, Julie Fischer, Angela Flaig, François Génot, Armin Göhringer, Valérie Graftieaux, Marianne Hopf, Claudie Hunzinger, Anja Luithle, Patrick Meyer, Rainer Nepita, Fernande Petitdemange, Pascal Henri Poirot, Martin Sander, Werner Schmidt, Nicolas Schneider, Robert Stephan, Gruppo Sportivo, Gabi Streile,Stefan Strumbel
Wanderung / Promenade
28 June - 20 October 2013
CEAAC and the Offenbourg Städtische Galerie are pleased to present a joint exhibition entitled Wanderung / Promenade. Bringing together 25 French and German artists in both venues, the exhibition will address the question of the relationship between walking and the mental readiness required to produce new ideas and forms.
A little over three million years ago, a group of individuals of the genus Australopithecus, part of the hominid family, became bipedal after thousands of years of evolution. Faced with a fast-changing environment, Lucy and her congeners adopted a mode of vertical movement, standing on their back legs. This change in their mode of locomotion had certain advantages. Standing, they could more easily identify potential hazards. Upright, they could reach hitherto inaccessible food. Walking on two feet, they saved their strength, quadrupeds being less energy efficient. Generally, as anthropologist and sociologist David Le Breton explains in his book In Praise of Walking, “Verticality and the integration of bipedal walking release the hands and face. The thousands of movements thus made available infinitely expanded communication skills and mankind’s room for manouevre in the environment and contributed to the development of the brain”. The bipedalism adopted by Australopithecus afarensis inspired other hominid cousins now known as homo sapiens or humans, the only species that survives to this day through adaption to this mode of movement.
Walking, mobility and nomadism are the fundamental characteristics of the human being. This mode of locomotion is primarily a matter of survival. Then, over the centuries, hunter- gatherers became explorers, gradually conquering the Earth in search of wealth, knowledge and spirituality.
Pilgrims in the Middle Ages claimed that “walking is praying with one’s feet”. Such moving meditation led to reverie, a term employed centuries later by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who saw his walks as an opportunity both to reconnect with the sensory world and to get closer to a “primitive ego”, a “natural ego”.
Today, in Western urban societies, human activities require more nervous energy than physical energy. The body is less and less in demand for its strength and sensory faculties. However, mobility and physical activities are necessary for human well-being to such an extent that in recent years walking has become one of Europe’s favourite pastimes.
While painters and writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth century were expected to perfect their knowledge of the world by touring Italy and visiting Rome, the artistic and intellectual capital, today’s artists do not hesitate to pace out reality looking for sensations that new communication and image technologies have almost stifled with their continuous stream of information.
Gathered together in a double exhibition entitled Wanderung / Promenade, French and German artists will share, through their work, their need and desire to travel the world.
Featuring : Patrick Bailly Maître-Grand, Diethard Blaudszun, Axel Bleyer, Robert Cahen, Yannick Demmerle, M. Dréa, Pierre Filliquet, Julie Fischer, Angela Flaig, François Génot, Armin Göhringer, Valérie Graftieaux, Marianne Hopf, Claudie Hunzinger, Anja Luithle, Patrick Meyer, Rainer Nepita, Fernande Petitdemange, Pascal Henri Poirot, Martin Sander, Werner Schmidt, Nicolas Schneider, Robert Stephan, Gruppo Sportivo, Gabi Streile,Stefan Strumbel