widthWhen it comes to large geopolitical projects, Walter Smerling is quite accomplished. From 2015 to 2017, the chairman of the Bonn Art and Culture Foundation (Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur) and a German art politician organized the largest ever Chinese art exhibition and German art exhibition in Germany.When the tension between the West Europe At about the same time that Russia began to rise, he envisioned an exhibition across the continent: “Dialogue”, as he said, “about what unites the people of Europe. About democracy, about unity, about individual and political freedom.”
The result is a diversified union, which is a traveling group exhibition that includes more than 150 artworks by approximately 100 living artists from 34 countries, selected by 10 curators. Fortunately, this is not about Brexit, but it does aim to emphasize the “importance of unifying Europe in times of political uncertainty.” Smerling said his mission is to promote basic liberal values. “How do we cooperate?” He wanted the show to ask. “What do you mean by respect, dignity, and freedom?”
In 2018, he convened curators from museums and galleries across the African continent, and together they reduced the long list of more than 300 living artists to about 90. For projects almost entirely funded by the private sector, this is an impressive collection. There are all European-related names in textbooks: from the illustrious Georg Baselitz, Paula Rego and Sheila Hicks in the eighties to Sonia Boyce (she will represent the United Kingdom at the Venice Biennale in 2022), and Yan Peiming (a few One of many contemporary artists) After his appearance in Venice in the early 2000s, he now sits in the Louvre). Moscow painter Ekaterina Muromtseva (Ekaterina Muromtseva) was born in 1990 and is the youngest painter.
Gerhard Richter can really get rid of always saying no at this stage of his career, he called Smalling and immediately agreed to participate. He proposed his “European Landscape”, which is a set of 60 very small, gem-like painted photos that few people know. Anselm Kieffer (Anselm Kieffer) also went all out to create a work that no one has seen before: a 19th century romantic (from Lady Destal to Lord Byron) in full size The setting is engraved in the cursive script that he can recognize at a glance. , Into a picturesque winter forest.
with Christian BoltanskiSadly passing away between the printing of the catalogue and the exhibition in Berlin in May, he produced a new video work called Etre à nouveau (“Become Again”), a diversified union. The format of this book is like a children’s book, where you can mix and match the heads, bodies and tails of creatures. This work features monochrome heads of unnamed children from Russia, Germany, and France with their foreheads. , Eyes and mouth are constantly transforming into new facial structures.
The curatorial team spent hours transcribing telephone conversations with the artists about their work and their relationship with Europe as a place and an idea. But none of this is straightforward, especially the meaning of “Europe”.
The term neither refers to the European Union nor the European Commission. The map in the catalog does not include Turkey (it has served on the committee since 1950, 46 years before Russia was granted membership), but Ahmet Ögüt, a conceptual artist born in Turkey and living in Amsterdam, is protected by the police. The compelling installation has left its mark.
Several curators pointed out that most of the artists here live in at least two countries, many live in more countries, and some are not born in what they now call home. As the British curator based in Paris, Simon Baker, commented on Yan Peiming: “For the past 38 years, one of China’s greatest artists has been working in Dijon, creating these incredible paintings about Napoleon. Come to me Say, this is contemporary Europe.”
I saw the first part in West Berlin, entering through a disturbing yellow light portal provided by an Iceland-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson (The second phase is now open in Moscow). The program is divided into 10 chapters. In the opening remarks of Lucy and Jorge Orta’s Antarctica World Passport Office titled Dreams and Democracy, you can obtain citizenship and credentials to serve a fictitious community dedicated to combating climate change and global inequality. My passport number is 2188. You can also get a mini-man-one of thousands of plastic models made by Fernando Sanchez Castillo. This model was the one who refused to salute the Nazis in 1936 among a group of Hitler supporters . You can sit down and Moldovan filmmaker Pavel Brăila filmed “European Shoes” in 2002: a documentary about how trains in the former Soviet Union stopped on their way to Western Europe because their carriages fit wider rail tracks. They must change their shoes.
Yan’s depiction of Napoleon’s crowning (in a superb monochromatic crimson) is the anchor of the third and most powerful chapter. The group is titled “Memory and Conflict” and includes a Tarkovsky-style video meditation about fear-an endless shot of the Moscow collective Bluesoup on what looks like an asteroid that keeps burning but never crashes. Polish sculptor Alicja Kwade’s rock on the slender structure is a fascinating moment, both heavy and disturbing. Latvian artist Kristaps Epners provided an evocative diptych, on the one hand a silent film about an old man in a leather jacket crossing a cold lake, on the other On the one hand, it’s a piece of travel about two young people in Siberia.
You walked out of that place (I was moved to tears), but you were greeted by the more crude poems of Estonian sculptor Kris Lemsalu: a pillow-shaped pillow based on a wall, cast in clay and Life-size limbs, glazed like Jackson Pollock, surrounded by pink duck down, with speakers and colorful climbing wall handles, are scattered around. This is a dance that you can’t hear but can definitely feel: a satisfying and pleasant touch.
As with any textbook, this project has serious flaws as the field it is trying to show. For things that literally have “diversity” in the title, the cast is almost all white. Of course, all curators are. But it is undeniable that there are beautiful art from the most fascinating artists in Europe everywhere. In this sense, this is a performance that cannot be failed.
