KNOWLEDGE IS A GARDEN
28 Sep 2024 - 19 Jan 2025
Uriel Orlow, Learning from Artemisia, 2019, 3-channel video on 3 monitors (color, sound, HD, synchronized, 2 x stereo sound, 14 minutes 14 seconds), tea- and sitting options, wall print, wall color, dimensions variable, Courtesy of Uriel Orlow. Commissioned by Lubumbashi Biennale VI, Ateliers Picha. Installation view Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Photo: Studio Stucky © ProLitteris, Zürich
Uriel Orlow, Learning from Artemisia, 2019, 3-channel video on 3 monitors (color, sound, HD, synchronized, 2 x stereo sound, 14 minutes 14 seconds), tea- and sitting options, wall print, wall color, dimensions variable, Courtesy of Uriel Orlow. Commissioned by Lubumbashi Biennale VI, Ateliers Picha. Installation view Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Photo: Studio Stucky © ProLitteris, Zürich
Teresa Margolles, La búsqueda, 2014, Sound installation, Intervention with sound frequency on glass panels transported from the historical center of Ciudad Juárez. The audio was recorded from the train that divides the city and transformed into low frequencies, Sammlung Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst. Installation view Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Photo: Studio Stucky © Teresa Margolles
Teresa Margolles, La búsqueda, 2014, Sound installation, Intervention with sound frequency on glass panels transported from the historical center of Ciudad Juárez. The audio was recorded from the train that divides the city and transformed into low frequencies, Sammlung Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst. Installation view Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Photo: Studio Stucky © Teresa Margolles
Teresa Burga, Autorretrato. Estructura. Informe. 9.6.72, 1972/2006/2011, Diagrams, prescriptions, photographs, phonocardiogram, plexiglass, wood, sound, Sammlung Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst. Installation view Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Photo: Studio Stucky © The Estate of Teresa Burga
Uriel Orlow, What Plants Were Called Before They Had a Name (Guatemala), 2019–2021, Single-channel video on monitor (color, sound, 11 minutes 53 seconds), overhead projections on canvases, dimensions variable, Courtesy of Uriel Orlow. Commissioned by Bienal Paiz Guatemala, Lothar Baumgarten, Vom Aroma der Namen, 1985, Heliography and silkscreen on paper, Sammlung Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst. Exhibition view Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Photo: Studio Stucky © ProLitteris, Zürich
Munem Wasif, Song of Seasons – An Ecological Calendar, 2023 – Ongoing, Natural dye textile, drawing from photographs, silkscreen print, hand-stitched text with wooden and steel hanging system, Courtesy of Munem Wasif and Project 88. Installation view Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Photo: Studio Stucky
Eva Kot’átková, Collection of Suppressed Voices, 2014, Steel, fired clay, prints on paper, cardboard, chalk, baskets, wood, General Idea, White AIDS (Wallpaper), 1990, Screen print on paper and White AIDS (F), 1993, Tinted white acrylic gesso (3 tints) on canvas, Dani Gal, Historical Records, Part 1, 2005–2018, 246 vinyl records, Sammlung Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst. Exhibition view Migros Museum für Gegen wartskunst, Photo: Studio Stucky © Eva Kot’átková, General Idea, Dani Gal
Uriel Orlow, Theatrum Botanicum Trilogy, 2016 - 2018, 3-channel video installation (color, b/w, sound, HD), dexion structure, dimensions variable, Sammlung Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zahra Malkani, Flowers, 2020, Text (Audio guide via QR-Code, Print), Courtesy of Zahra Malkani. Exhibition view Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Photo: Studio Stucky © ProLitteris, Zürich
Uriel Orlow, Theatrum Botanicum Trilogy, 2016 - 2018, 3-channel video installation (color, b/w, sound, HD), dexion structure, dimensions variable, Teresa Burga, Autorretrato. Estructura. Informe. 9.6.72, 1972/2006/2011, Diagrams, prescriptions, photographs, phonocardiogram, plexiglass, wood, sound, Sammlung Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst. Exhibition view Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Photo: Studio Stucky © ProLitteris, Zürich
With works by Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Sammy Baloji, Lothar Baumgarten, Teresa Burga, Maria Eichhorn, Dani Gal, General Idea, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Eva Kot’átková, Susan Hiller, Zahra Malkani, Teresa Margolles, Senga Nengudi, Uriel Orlow, Elodie Pong, Ed Ruscha and Munem Wasif
‘Knowledge is like a garden: if it’s not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.’ Taking this West African proverb as its starting point, ‘Knowledge Is a Garden’ asks what possibilities arise if we understand knowledge that is supposedly fixed as something organic and growing.
In the exhibition Uriel Orlow explores what a garden of knowledge can be and what its cultivation and growth signify. In line with his interests the artist sets up a dialogue between his own works and those of the museum collection, which for their part raise questions around the production or suppression of knowledge. This selection is expanded by loans from Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Sammy Baloji, Zahra Malkani and Munem Wasif – artists who engage with suppressed history and traditional knowledge in their artistic practice.
‘Knowledge Is a Garden’ is an artistic engagement with the repression of knowledge, the unjust appropriation of knowledge, and ultimately with multiple forms of knowledge production. Knowledge does not consist of neutral facts and information, and is never all-encompassing. Rather, it is always situated, historical, and, above all, contested and vulnerable. The question of who gets to speak and whose voice is silenced is as urgent as ever – and marked by global inequality.
Three loose thematic threads run through the exhibition: the entanglement of knowledge and language, and the loss of both; the extraction of knowledge and exploitation of raw materials in the Global South by countries of the Global North; and the wilful suppression of knowledge as well as consciously looking away.
By extension, the exhibition encourages visitors to consider their own knowledge as a garden that must be cultivated.
Curated by Uriel Orlow with Nadia Schneider Willen
Curatorial Assistant: Louisa Behr
‘Knowledge is like a garden: if it’s not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.’ Taking this West African proverb as its starting point, ‘Knowledge Is a Garden’ asks what possibilities arise if we understand knowledge that is supposedly fixed as something organic and growing.
In the exhibition Uriel Orlow explores what a garden of knowledge can be and what its cultivation and growth signify. In line with his interests the artist sets up a dialogue between his own works and those of the museum collection, which for their part raise questions around the production or suppression of knowledge. This selection is expanded by loans from Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Sammy Baloji, Zahra Malkani and Munem Wasif – artists who engage with suppressed history and traditional knowledge in their artistic practice.
‘Knowledge Is a Garden’ is an artistic engagement with the repression of knowledge, the unjust appropriation of knowledge, and ultimately with multiple forms of knowledge production. Knowledge does not consist of neutral facts and information, and is never all-encompassing. Rather, it is always situated, historical, and, above all, contested and vulnerable. The question of who gets to speak and whose voice is silenced is as urgent as ever – and marked by global inequality.
Three loose thematic threads run through the exhibition: the entanglement of knowledge and language, and the loss of both; the extraction of knowledge and exploitation of raw materials in the Global South by countries of the Global North; and the wilful suppression of knowledge as well as consciously looking away.
By extension, the exhibition encourages visitors to consider their own knowledge as a garden that must be cultivated.
Curated by Uriel Orlow with Nadia Schneider Willen
Curatorial Assistant: Louisa Behr