UNTRANQUIL NOW
Press information
A constellation of narratives and resonances
Artistic gestures, configurations, performances and projections
Curator
Dr. Corinne Diserens
Assistant curator
Leona Marie Ahrens
The exhibition untranquil now spotlights artworks, performances, figures and events in which bodies and modes of perception become the agents of contradictory states and eventful histories. The works shed light on configurations of power and stimulate our imagination through heterogeneous narratives, while the artistic and performative gestures creatively interrogate what is happening in the world. The exhibition, complete with a programme of performances and films, has been organised in cooperation with the International Summer Festival 2024 at Kampnagel in Hamburg. Transdisciplinary in approach, it presents works of art that shift their narratives off the stage in order to incorporate human or animal figures, modernist buildings, a social housing complex, a rooftop, a public square, a park, an abandoned site, an archaeological excavation or an industrial platform.
Tracing a web of historical resonances or coincidences, and exploring a multipli-city of contexts and spatial-sensory experiences influenced by political and social circumstances, the exhibition establishes connections to issues of memory, heritage and intimacy. It brings historical sediments to the surface in order to propagate their effects. In this way, the show evokes a »contrapuntal consciousness« (E. Said) at various levels of intensity, attempting to tap its considerable potential.
Participating artists include: John Akomfrah, Francis Alÿs, Richard Artschwager, Au Sow Yee, Rosa Barba, Yto Barrada, Éric Baudelaire, Lothar Baumgarten, Wang Bing, Dara Birnbaum, Manon de Boer & Latifa Laâbissi, Trisha Brown, Chen Chieh-jen, Lucinda Childs, Tacita Dean, Ângela Ferreira, Peter Friedl, Coco Fusco, Dora Garcia, General Idea, Yervant Gianikian & Angela Ricci Lucchi, Dan Graham, Hsu Chia-Wei, Pierre Huyghe, Joan Jonas, Limbo Accra, Gordon Matta-Clark, Anca Munteanu Rimnic, Raqs Media Collective, Dieter Roth, Athi-Patra Ruga, Anri Sala, Tomoko Sauvage, Alexander Schellow, Nida Sinnokrot, Hyun-Sook Song, Nasrin Tabatabai & Babak Afrassiabi, Rosemarie Trockel, Kara Walker, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Paola Yacoub.