Kunsthaus Baselland

Loose thinking

21 - 30 Aug 2015

LOOSE THINKING
Diploma and Annual Exhibition of the Bachelors of Art, Institute Art, HGK FHNW
21 - 30 August 2015

In cooperation with the Institute of Art HGK FHNW all the three years of BA-HGK will be invited to a newly designed exhibition to present their work.

The exhibition is curated by Chus Martínez, Director of the Institute Art HGK FHNW, and Ines Goldbach.

“As I see it, the advances in scientific thought come from a combination of loose and strict thinking, and this combination is the most precious too l of science.” (Gregory Bateson: Experiments in Thinking About Observed Ethnological Material)

This is an uncommon exhibition. It presents the audience with the works of about twenty students that graduate this summer and circa forty that are still in their first and second year of the bachelor degree. The Diploma is actually marked by an artwork that, exhibited to an audience, marks the beginning of your life as an artist. This very old ritual is a fundamental one, stating the importance of the presence of both the work and the viewer in a public art institution. Expanding the exhibition to present not only those that are „finished“ studying but those that are still in the process represents an opportunity for all to foresee their public task as an artist. Art is there not only to please or to practice with matter in ways that contradict function, but to remind us about how in sensing and seeing the world differently, we also sense ourselves differently.

There is no common trait that unites all these works, and there is. What they all have in common is an energy that is directed toward a complex understanding of the self and how it works. Also, the sheer size of our world is posing new challenges to the traditional view of who we are. All through the exhibition you will be confronted with the self and the absurd, the self and the form, the self and the street, the self and the media, the self and the void, the self and the surreal, the self and the hand, the self and technology... You may ask, is this a subject? Is it a coincidence? It is not a subject, since it is not a motive among others but the attempt to understand how the interplay between our minds -the self- and the social has been radically transformed. And how this transformation has altered not only our habits but our feelings. Art is, in other words, the ground to inquire and to better understand what this means. From selfies to social media, from bullying to mobbing, from all sort of distress to isolation we have been experiencing how protocols, norms and regulations have taken over and have influenced our thinking. We have become strict.

Loose Thinking is the title chosen for the exhibition. It is actually a scientific term coined by anthropologist and philosopher Gregory Bateson. Bateson was one of the first reflecting on the importance of the loose, of all impulses and energies that are not directed, planned, strategized but lived. Without those energies, thinking and, more importantly, novel thinking, is not possible. Risk-taking is the process of learning how this inter-play affects our intelligence, our comprehension of the world. Art is not the only discipline where this ideas are constantly present, but is surely the one that sincerely expresses an interest in undertaking constant research on the future of the possible in relationship with experience.

Diploma Graduates

Vera Bruggmann, Denise Fonjallaz, Carla Céline Geissberger, Azumi Goya, Mario Grossert, Silas Heizmann, Jorim Huber, Caroline Keller, Sonja Lippuner, Julia Minnig & Jelena Nikolić, Martin Pedersen, Gabriel Salgado Jérémie Sarbach & Flurina Badel, Manuel Schneider, Tobija Stuker, Hanes Sturzenegger, Tanja Weidmann, Elisabeth Zeller.

Bachelor Graduates

1st and 2nd academic year: Markus Aebersold, Anna Balint, Mattania Bösiger, Leonardo Bürgi, Manuela Cossalter, Nadine Cueni, Kaja Eng, Raphaela Grolimund, Manuel Guldimann, Chris Handberg, Simon Hofmann, Monika Iseli, Andreas Jenni, Sherina Keser, Melanie Kuratli, Jemima Läubli, Céline Liebi, Marisa Meier, Ephraim Meister, Robin Michel, Laura Mietrup, Katrin Niedermeier, Sapir Kesem Leary, Rosella Puliafito, Raphael Reichert, Lea Rüegg, Njomza Sadikaj, Rebeka Schiessl, Sebnem Seckin, Yanik Soland, Fidel Stadelmann, Aline Stalder, Simone Steinegger, Sandra Steiner, Aysa Stettler, Paula Thiel, Vittoria Vonarburg, Isadora Vogt, Sean Völlmin, Simon Wyss
 

Tags: A.L. Steiner