Exhibition opening: Territories of the In/Human

From April 30 to August 1, 2010 the Württembergischer Kunstverein in conjunction with Akademie Schloss Solitude will show the exhibition Territories of the In/Human in celebration of the twenty-year anniversary of the foundation of the Akademie.

With this exhibition, the Kunstverein is following this year’s thematic focus on Akademie Schloss Solitude and the question as to how pervasive concepts of the human and inhuman are. The twenty-year history of the Akademie Schloss Solitude coincides with a series of far-reaching political, social, economic, and cultural upheavals: from the disintegration of the communist and socialist states, to the establishment of new borders and enemy stereotypes, to significant changes in structures of information and communication.

While the triumphant success of Western models of democracy and free market economy were still being celebrated in the early nineteen-nineties, it soon became evident that its promises of never-ending peace and prosperity for all were not going to prove sustainable: in face of wars such as those in former Yugoslavia, Africa, Afghanistan, and Iraq; an ever expanding divide between wealth and poverty; the scramble for natural resources like water, oil, and gas; or the bursting of diverse economic bubbles, not least in the context of the most recent collapse of the financial and real-estate markets. The accelerated and apparently boundless mobility of people, goods, information, or capital flow—as has been conjured up under the scope of the rhetoric of progress within the age of globalization—goes hand in hand with those fatal acts of inclusion and exclusion to which nearly half a million people have fallen prey over the past two decades on trails of migration. It is against this backdrop that the exhibition of the Kunstverein sets out to explore questions pertaining to concepts of the human and inhuman.

Works from around thirty Solitude scholarship recipients, both current and former are being shown —works created between the nineteen-nineties and today. Taking a central role here is an exploration of spatial and societal acts of inclusion and exclusion that have proven inherent to the concept of modern man. The dichotomies of human and inhuman, subject and object, norm and deviation, guilt and innocence are critically questioned with similar intensity, as are both the open and hidden structures of violence within the struggle to secure a position within a shifting world order. Continuing along these lines is an exhibition focus on patterns of angst and control, on concepts of functionality and on hierarchical patterns— including how these are inscribed in private and public territories. The objective of the exhibition does not—and cannot feasibly—include an exhaustive negotiation of the question of the human and inhuman. Moreover, it attempts to treat selected aspects of this complex and sweeping radius of problematic issues.

Idea: Philip Ursprung
Concept and curators: Hans D. Christ, Iris Dressler

Participating artists: bankleer (D), Bernd Behr (D/UK), Frederico Câmara (BRA/UK), Matilde Cassani (IT), Lukas Einsele (D), Edgar Endress (CHL), Björn Franke (D/UK), Mariam Ghani (USA), Matthew Gottschalk (USA), Dagmar Keller / Martin Wittwer (D/CH), Iosif Kirali (ROU), Anna Konik (POL), Aglaia Konrad (CH/BEL), Korpys / Löffler (D), Elke Marhöfer (D), Christine Meisner (D), Olivier Menanteau (F), Monika Oechsler (D/UK), p. t. t. red (D), Danilo Prnjat (SRB), Pia Fuchs (dt. ID von Patricia Reed) (CND/D), Dubravka Sekulić (SRB), Helene Sommer (NOR/D), Jan Peter E. R. Sonntag (D), Krassimir Terziev (BGR), Lan Tuazon (USA), Nomeda und Gediminas Urbonas (LTU)…

The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive lecture and film program.

In the fall of 2010 a performance series will be held at the Württembergischer Kunstverein, in conjunction with the commemoration of twenty years of Akademie Schloss Solitude.