Transcript:
In the art space, when a gallery or museum showcases work about social or environmental issues, there sometimes is an uncomfortable contradiction between the context and messages conveyed by the art pieces on display, and what the exhibition space emanates. Have you experienced that? Or is it just me…?
My name is Camille, you’re listening to Cosmic Dynamics, 5 min of exploration on art, change, & the music of the universe.
The art works being shown is one thing, but the context and place in which it is being shown is another, isn’t it? One telling example, currently making headlines is art & craft from the colonial era still on display in the colonisers’ museums in a way that is still very… colonial, see what I mean? Same kind of dilemma when a shareholder from an oil company buys environmental art. Is it emptying the piece of its meaning? It’s a bit like if Rage Against The Machine was performing at the White House in 1994, for Clinton and his foreign policy advisors.
This is a real challenge for all artistic expressions that carry a social or environmental message, what is the right forum to exhibit them, who is the right public, the right buyer, and how can the art piece transcend the space it is given so the messages embedded in it cannot be completely sucked in by the black hole of contradiction.
With this in mind, I want to highlight an upcoming exhibition that seems to be taking steps in the right direction to align the experience of the exhibition with the messaging of the showing.
The event is called Zero Waste, it will be at Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig (MdbK) this week, it is produced by the German Environment Agency in cooperation with the MdbK Leipzig, and Curated by Hannah Beck-Mannagetta and Lena Fließbach. It features more than 20 artists taking a critical look at the current condition of our planet but also imagining possible solutions, encouraging alternative scopes of action, and proposing visions for the future. What’s worth noting and unfortunately not so common, is that the project follows self-imposed climate-friendly rules in an attempt to make its own carbon footprint transparent and to compensate for it. Which is quite a must on this topic, isn’t it?
The million-euro question would be: How much waste will it produce?
I wish I was in Leipzig to meet the fantastic artists featured in the exhibition and experience their work. Join if you can, links in the notes!
Cheers.
In the art space, when a gallery or museum showcases
work about #social or #environmental issues, there sometimes is an uncomfortable contradiction between the context and messages conveyed by the art pieces on display, and what the exhibition space emanates. Have you experienced that? Or is it just me…?
@zerowasteexhibition seems to be taking steps in the right direction to align the experience of the exhibition with the messaging of the showing. Don’t miss if you’re around Leipzig this week!
Special thanks to @swaantje_guentzel
Images: Swaantje Güntzel / © VG Bild-Kunst 2020 © Alexander Oelofse © Tue Greenfort © Vibha Galhotra
Website links:
www.mdbk.de
https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/das-uba/kunst-umwelt-s
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Thank you for tuning in.🎧
Camille
