FUCK YOUR FEAR

VAN HORN PRESENTS

FUCK YOUR FEAR
CONCEIVED IN COLLABORATION WITH FLORIAN PETERS-MESSER
18.01.2019 - 09.03.2019
OPENING: FRI. 18.01.2019 18:00 - 21:00
joint opening of the galleries in Düsseldorf-Flingern

JUDITH BERNSTEIN, SOPHIE CALLE, GILBERT & GEORGE, ZOE LEONARD, PAUL MCCARTHY, BJARNE MELGAARD, GREGOR SCHNEIDER, CINDY SHERMAN, WOLFGANG TILLMANS, BETTY TOMPKINS

Genitals, naked bodies, blood and violence - provocation as a means of confrontation and art as a place of transgression. Who sets the limits? Does art have to pay attention to it? Or is it particularly it’s job to cross the border? In times of #metoo, identity politics and puritanism on the rise the exhibition "Fuck your Fear" encounters the current re-emerging taboo of sex and gender, and looks at artists like Betty Tompkins, Sophie Calle, or Paul McCarthy who work on the border of what is called taboo breaking and confront the alleged "political correctness" of latest debates.
Currently, there is a paradoxical contradiction of empowerment and the deprivation of power within society. Indeed there is finally an immediate and joint channel for women to curb humiliation of patriarchal conventions (or worse), but at the same time the minefield of political correctness is constantly growing. It does not matter whether it is about Women’s empowerment, the liberation of the de-sexualized homosexual man, who is made socially suitable, or the sometimes too quickly raised reproach of sexism against the heterosexual man - the fear of assignments and their possible consequences lead to signs of paralysis and an ever-increasing censorship among one another. The exhibition presents works from the 1980s, 1990s as well as current positions that recall a mood of subversive radicalism and liberation in the arts, while at the same time tie in with today. When the portrayal of penetrating genitals like in the "Fuck Paintings" by Betty Tompkins does not intend sexism, but rather battle it, or the socially degraded, erect penis in Gregor Schneider's "Man with cock" lies on the ground with his head covered, attributions and limits of sex and identity turn into a counter model of today's mechanisms of perpetrators and victims.

We want to thank all artists and parties involved which generously provided the artworks for this special exhibition.

Arndt Art Agency, Berlin; Guido W. Baudach, Berlin; Galerie Gisela Capitain, Köln; Sammlung Falckenberg in den Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; Rodolphe Janssen, Brüssel; Karma International, Zürich/Los Angeles; Sammlung Lobeck, Wuppertal; Sammlung Peters-Messer, Viersen; Sprüth Magers, Berlin/London/Los Angeles