Reflexion und Einfühlung
21 Jan - 31 Mar 2012
REFLEXION UND EINFÜHLUNG
Curator: Julia Höner
21 January - 31 March, 2012
Natalie Czech
Alexandra Hopf
Nashashibi/Skaer
Olivia Plender
Laure Prouvost
Lucy Skaer
Jens Ullrich
Since the beginning of the twentieth century artists have been using their art to examine the conditions under which art is produced and perceived. For even longer they have been making use of the wealth of styles and motifs in art history. Art and its context form an inexhaustible pool of material, fertile ground upon which the new flourishes.
The exhibition Reflexion und Einfühlung (Reflection and Empathy) presents the work of seven artists who move with the elegance of flaneurs through the recesses of the system, examining the conditions under which art is made. In their works Natalie Czech, Alexandra Hopf, Nashashibi/Skaer, Olivia Plender, Laure Prouvost, Lucy Skaer and Jens Ullrich look at who produces art, under which conditions it is presented, who participates in semanticizing it, and what kind of aesthetic tools artists have today to invent their own forms. For artists, the process of grounding their goals and tasks in art and its immediate context could be described as reflective and empathic, yet, their entanglement with the promises and pitfalls of making art cannot be called hermetic. Their works could be regarded as a response to a time that is dominated as never before by the simultaneity of inequalities in art, politics, and life. This situation does not permit any objectifying statements about the world as a system of references, or about art itself and the conditions under which it is presented. Instead, the artists in this exhibition convey their subjective perspective of things. The reflection of reality is replaced by the “reality of reflection,” in which the relationships of the pictures to each other and their link to the subject of thought play a role. Artist’s vitae, institutional concepts, and existing works are regarded as unfinished processes that refer to each other and to contemporary art, forming a foundation for a mode of thinking within the infinite space of possibilities.
Curator: Julia Höner
21 January - 31 March, 2012
Natalie Czech
Alexandra Hopf
Nashashibi/Skaer
Olivia Plender
Laure Prouvost
Lucy Skaer
Jens Ullrich
Since the beginning of the twentieth century artists have been using their art to examine the conditions under which art is produced and perceived. For even longer they have been making use of the wealth of styles and motifs in art history. Art and its context form an inexhaustible pool of material, fertile ground upon which the new flourishes.
The exhibition Reflexion und Einfühlung (Reflection and Empathy) presents the work of seven artists who move with the elegance of flaneurs through the recesses of the system, examining the conditions under which art is made. In their works Natalie Czech, Alexandra Hopf, Nashashibi/Skaer, Olivia Plender, Laure Prouvost, Lucy Skaer and Jens Ullrich look at who produces art, under which conditions it is presented, who participates in semanticizing it, and what kind of aesthetic tools artists have today to invent their own forms. For artists, the process of grounding their goals and tasks in art and its immediate context could be described as reflective and empathic, yet, their entanglement with the promises and pitfalls of making art cannot be called hermetic. Their works could be regarded as a response to a time that is dominated as never before by the simultaneity of inequalities in art, politics, and life. This situation does not permit any objectifying statements about the world as a system of references, or about art itself and the conditions under which it is presented. Instead, the artists in this exhibition convey their subjective perspective of things. The reflection of reality is replaced by the “reality of reflection,” in which the relationships of the pictures to each other and their link to the subject of thought play a role. Artist’s vitae, institutional concepts, and existing works are regarded as unfinished processes that refer to each other and to contemporary art, forming a foundation for a mode of thinking within the infinite space of possibilities.