STUDIES&THEORY

Herzliche Einladung zu STUDIES&THEORY ERÖFFNUNG: Samstag, 24 April, 2010 Ausstellungsdauer: 24 April - 16 Mai, 2010

Studies&theory takes as its starting point the idea of research and observation of social structures and globalism today. Based on the idea of Max Horkheimer’s und Theodor W. Adorno’s „Dialektik der Aufklärung“ published in 1947 in Amsterdam, which became a crucial and the major work of the Gesellschaftstheorie (social theory) in a 1960s post-war Europe, this exhibition brings together a selection of eleven international artists that still four decades later, critically reference and scrutinize hierarchies, network structures and behaviorism today. 1968 is the turning point, not only for the political emancipation of a democratic society in Western Europe and North-America, it also signaled the end of the western hegemony in Africa and their colonies. This change found its language in the re-definition of modern contemporary art through happenings, political actions, groups like fluxus and zero, and in their early aims of international networking. These artists and intellectuals assumed greater importance through organization and engagement on a platform that would allow information flow and critical debates of prevailing social orders. Crossing the borders between art, science, literature, philosophy and art, has since then been a key factor in the production of art. In 1969 when the American “landing on the moon” was broadcast most of the developed world was still seeing a world that was black and white, good and evil, East and West. On the high of this Cold-War media, the adoption of imperialist values were easily channeled by many countries. Since then though, with the rise and global viewpoint engendered by the world wide web, the adoption of such simplistic views have became a case of diminishing returns. Information i.e. education, spreads quickly and radically uprooting cultural assumptions of the past. To make an accusation or claim that there is an “axis of evil” today, in a world that is open to various sources and values simultaneously, has been counterproductive. Like “the news” that we took for granted and true for decades, something has changed. Our point of view on the historicity of the past, has been drastically altered by the information that is now accessible to the average person. What was “black and white” has now become, many shades of gray or the hues of the rainbow. Through the collapse of old good vs. bad system, the world we live in today misses its clear hegemonic structures in favor of a new pluralism, but it still often fails to accept, the very latest models and views. studies&theory examines artists positions that through study and theoretical approach use various media to convey their concepts and views on our world today. It shows examples of different critical examinations, of contradictions and commonalities, that we face in our global as well as our local societies. Many of the works are crossing boundaries based in the nature of the artists’ own heritages and relocations of place, by transforming and altering information through the use of language, translation, modification, sound-alteration or visual manipulation.

STUDIES&THEORY Saâdane Afif, Olivier Babin, Liu Chuang, Maria Eichhorn, Marine Hugonnier, Ivan Moudov, Olaf Nicolai, Peter Simensky, Marcus Steinweg, Nasan Tur, Suse Weber

STUDIES&THEORY
Arbeiten ausgewählt von Birte Kleemann

Künstler: Saadane Afif, Olivier Babin, Liu Chuang, Maria Eichhorn, Marine Hugonnier, Ivan Moudov, Olaf Nicolai, Peter Simensky, Marcus Steinweg, Nasan Tur, Suse Weber.