NGBK Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst

In Other Words

03 Mar - 15 Apr 2012

IN OTHER WORDS
The black market of translations - negotiating contemporary cultures
3 March – 15 April 2012

NGBK & Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien

The operations of translation – reading, understanding, interpreting and rewriting a foreign text – can be understood as a cultural strategy to cross into other cultures. The exhibition will display a market of the foreign and otherness, inviting artists that explore the tongue of the Other and work in-between languages and cultures, penetrating, embodying and contrabanding Others’ words.

Adel Abidin, Marwa Arsanios, Kader Attia, Julien Audebert, Elena Bellantoni, Emilio Chapela Pérez, Cherimus, Julian D’Angiolillo, Detanico Lain, Yoel Díaz Vázquez, Braco Dimitrijević, Mounir Fatmi, Ofir Feldman, Graciela Guerrero Weisson, Christoph Keller, Moridja Kitenge Banza, Daniel Knorr, Takehito Koganezawa, Oliver Laric, Karl Larsson, Adrian Lohmüller, Miguel Monroy, Muntadas, Timo Nasseri, Olaf Nicolai, Jorge Pedro Nuñez, Nana Oforiatta-Ayim, Timea Oravecz, Bernardo Oyarzún, Soledad Pinto, Rosângela Rennó, Gabriel Rossell Santillán/Nik Nowak, Sona Safaei-Sooreh, Mariateresa Sartori, Demian Schopf, Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio, Paolo W. Tamburella, Mihalis Theodosiadis, Dani Umpi, Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, Humberto Vélez, Luca Vitone, James Webb, Dilek Winchester a.o.

When selecting the artworks, the project team focused on four fields of activity having to do with contemporary translation:
• the critical analysis of global operations of English and the dominant languages of a community of users
• the production of new languages and/or translations that uncover the pictorial language, imagery and identitary conception of the “Other”
• the fostering and recreation of forgotten languages and cultures
• attempts at rewriting, deciphering and transferring one code or medium to another


In the sense of a black market, the exhibition displays activities of cultural transaction, of transferring and translating specific cultural economies. The question is raised whether a translation can bring the differences between languages, identities and cultures back together again. A form of “cultural translation” is proposed that could be a concept for future cooperation and negotiation between contemporary cultures.

The black market as a metaphor of illegal trading creates a space for variegated counter-translations. The exhibition compiles popular, alternative and informal experiences of globalisation and multiple acts of translation– large and small, dominating and resistant, official and censored.
 

Tags: Adel Abidin, Marwa Arsanios, Kader Attia, Julien Audebert, Braco Dimitrijevic, Mounir Fatmi, Sandra Vasquez de la Horra, Christoph Keller, Daniel Knorr, Takehito Koganezawa, Detanico & Lain, Detanico Lain, Oliver Laric, Karl Larsson, Adrian Lohmüller, Muntadas, Timo Nasseri, Olaf Nicolai, Nik Nowak, Jorge Pedro Nuñez, Rosângela Rennó, Luca Vitone, James Webb