We are Orient
18 Dec 2010 - 20 Feb 2011
WE ARE ORIENT
Contemporary Arabesques
18 December 2010 to 20 February 2011
Today Western societies’ feelings towards the Middle East are often defined by an anxious distance towards a foreign world. At the same time, romanticised notions with a penchant for the exotic are also still very much alive. However, a closer look beyond these clichéd ideas reveals a century-old relationship between Western and Eastern pictorial cultures. While the rejection of decorative ornaments, as propagated by the Bauhaus movement for example, largely influenced the development of modern abstract art, ornamentation is also one of the oldest forms of non-figurative depiction. Beyond their shared origins in antiquity, the influence of the Arabic and Islamic world on the Western world prevails until this day, even if we are not always aware of it.
The exhibition “We are the Orient” brings together contemporary Western European artists in whose work ornaments play a central part. The different forms and approaches do not only show this motif’s numerous possibilities but also its contradictions. The artists of this show develop a new perspective on ornamentation which lies somewhere between strictly organised systems and poetically liberated lines, between cumbersome grids and transparent textures, and between decorative surfaces and symbolically condensed spaces. Thanks to these approaches, categorisations such as typically European and typically “Oriental” become redundant.
Artists
Martin Assig, Gabriele Basch, Mariella Mosler, Christine Streuli, Heike Weber
Contemporary Arabesques
18 December 2010 to 20 February 2011
Today Western societies’ feelings towards the Middle East are often defined by an anxious distance towards a foreign world. At the same time, romanticised notions with a penchant for the exotic are also still very much alive. However, a closer look beyond these clichéd ideas reveals a century-old relationship between Western and Eastern pictorial cultures. While the rejection of decorative ornaments, as propagated by the Bauhaus movement for example, largely influenced the development of modern abstract art, ornamentation is also one of the oldest forms of non-figurative depiction. Beyond their shared origins in antiquity, the influence of the Arabic and Islamic world on the Western world prevails until this day, even if we are not always aware of it.
The exhibition “We are the Orient” brings together contemporary Western European artists in whose work ornaments play a central part. The different forms and approaches do not only show this motif’s numerous possibilities but also its contradictions. The artists of this show develop a new perspective on ornamentation which lies somewhere between strictly organised systems and poetically liberated lines, between cumbersome grids and transparent textures, and between decorative surfaces and symbolically condensed spaces. Thanks to these approaches, categorisations such as typically European and typically “Oriental” become redundant.
Artists
Martin Assig, Gabriele Basch, Mariella Mosler, Christine Streuli, Heike Weber