What Am I Doing Here

Jennifer Bacon and Filippo Fossati announce the opening Tuesday, June 3rd, 2003 of the group show What Am I Doing Here? Please note that from June 17, gallery hours will be from Tuesday to Friday, from 1:00 to 6:00 p.m. or by appointment.

What Am I Doing Here? is originally the title of a collection of essays by writer Bruce Chatwin, but here it is a philosophical question that we have been asking ourselves a lot lately.

On September 11 the "civilized" world realized that everyone could be "collateral damage" in somebody else's war. Violence provokes violence and in this time muscle and money seem to prevail. We are all deeply shocked by the conflicts around us and by the wartime in which we are living. We are against the war, but moreover we are upset with the stupidity and the lack of dignity that rules humanity, with those who want to teach ignorance and fear to their fellow creatures and are governing our lives with arrogance and violence. Already two countries have been destroyed and with them their culture (our culture) and their art. This involves us and demonstrates that who ever is governing this world is not interested in people, in their dignity, in their culture and least of all in art.

The poor physical and mental shape of this world concerns us personally and we feel a profound need to say something. This is not a call for a political show in an institutional sense, we think that art stands in a place opposite politics; it's closer to anarchy, a free form of expression, and the aesthetic of culture.

To answer the question that titles the exhibition What Am I Doing Here? we would like to show exactly what we are doing during this unhappy time. Art.

Photographic works by Slater Bradley, Curtis Mitchell, Nzingah Muhammad, Florio Puenter and Francesco Simeti; sculptural works by Jay Batlle, Rita McBride and Maurizio Pellegrin; paintings and works on paper by Glen Rubsamen, Nicolas Rule, John Strutton and Luca Vitone; video by Barbara Pollack and Randy Moore

Pressetext

What Am I Doing Here ?
(A Political Exhibition)

mit Art & Language, Georg Baselitz, Jay Batlle, Alighiero e Boetti, Slater Bradley, Rita McBride, Curtis Mitchell, Randy Moore, Nzingah Muhammad, Maurizio Pellegrin, Barbara Pollack, Florio Puenter, Ad Reinhardt, Glen Rubsamen, Nicolas Rule, Salvatore Scarpitta, Francesco Simeti, John Strutton, Luca Vitone, Gilberto Zorio