Concept: Consciences and Frontiers

Introduction

Our psycho-social existence has been very much attuned to boundaries and differences within and without: Not only do we have the physical boundary of the skin which separates our interior from the exterior, but also have we built virtual frontiers of our consciences within as well as non-virtual barriers without ourselves.

Internal barriers

Inconsistencies of the “voice within” might lead to emotional difficulties, which are known to put our internal unity asunder. The effects range over many shades from discomfort or non-productivity to aggression, which are further reflected to our environment in so contradictory forms like remorse, fear, violence or rectitude and integrity.

In the same way, personality conflicts, whose causes and courses are as well multiple, not only lead to a swanking of humours – from melancholic to sanguine, choleric to phlegmatic as defined by the ancient Hippocratic school – but might express themselves further as frustration and intimidation. This thus can cause a personality complex of the napoleonic order, as viewed by Alfred Adler or of the narcissistic order, as defined by Erich Fromm or Sigmund Freud.

These internal conflicts culminate in confrontations within the faculty that distinguishes whether our actions are right or wrong – the human conscience – and thus to other grave consequences that might build a bridge to external barriers like aggression or segregation issues.

External barriers

Apart from building boundaries between countries, tribes and races, we misuse the internal difficulties and conflicts of our conscience as masks to justify our prejudices and misconceptions. As much as Iuvenalis’ “Mens sana in corpore sano” is of validity, so accordingly is “an unhealthy esprit in an unhealthy body” valid and in a global context “unhealthy conflicts of the conscience result in an unhealthy environment”. This resonates in the immediate environment as frontiers of all kinds: Ideological debates about Muslim women wearing headscarves or not, if Africans rob Germans of their jobs and women, if all Arabs are sympathizers of Al-Qaida, if Poles rob Germans of their cars and jobs, if juvenile delinquent Germans of foreign origin should be deported, if the “black sheep” in Switzerland are responsible for >70% of rapes and other criminal offences, if some human beings are superior to others just because of the colour of their skin?

These are just a few of these external barriers that arise from our deep-rooted inner disruption and prejudices.

Conscience in Arts, Frontiers of Arts

Artists of all times have thematized human conscience and the frontiers it poses, being it allegorical, emblematic or symbolical depictions of a personified Conscientia, or – more prevalent – the depiction of related moral faculties, like Justitia or virtues and vice, as well as metaphorical narrations of situations when conscience decisions have to be made. For example, the “Hercules at the crossroads” who, having to choose between a comfortable and seducing life or a virtuous, yet a life of labours, opts for the “arête” and honour. Such is the case with the numerous confrontations of a life in virtue versus a life in vice established in Christian iconography.

Maybe even more extensive are the art works that where created out of artistic conscience – they do not thematize the human conscience itself but rather show its consequences. Artists have always used arts possibilities/power to document, comment, criticise political and social circumstances. Most famous are Francisco de Goya’s “Disasters of War”, a still staggering comment on the Napoleonic wars on the Spanish peninsula. In the 1920s, artists like George Grosz or Otto Dix chose a veristic approach to the state of their time, suffering from the aftermath of WW I.

Of course, contemporary artists, too, have created striking comments on the circumstances of their world, such as Daniel Richter’s “Tarifa” paintings or Romuald Hazoumé’s “Dream” presented on the last Documenta XII. Both works also touch on the theme of frontiers. Richter depicts, sublimely or even ghostly, boatpeople trying to leave Africa in the hopeful search for a better life in Europe. Hazoumé’s installation of a boat made of plastic canisters points to the fate of refugees, in a more subtle way, but is also a comment to the many slave ships that raided the shores of Africa.

The omnipresent social differences are still a vital topic in contemporary art. Tuca Vieira’s remarkable photography of São Paulo, showing a ghetto and a rich quarter literally wall to wall, is of symbolic character – the dividing force of a simple wall could hardly be more striking. In a similar way, Yishay Garbasz’s photos of “The Fence” portray the reality of the Israelian-Palestinian barricade with its human and economic consequences.

Manifestations of frontiers, like the named walls, provoke arts’ reactions. The graffitis on the left-over of the Berlin wall are still an impressive evidence of Germany’s recent past. In a similar way, yet of more disturbing actuality, Banksy’s wall paintings on the Israeli Wall try a picturesque break through the concrete.

Painting on-site locations, street artists like Jean Michel Basquiat, Blek le Rat or Banksy have also broken one of the most elemental frontiers painters experience: the limitations posed by their material and painting ground. Some artists of the 20^th century had already reacted on this, in abstaining from the traditional frame, the visible frontier between painting and surroundings. In this spirit, Lucio Fontana, for example, literally cut through the canvas’ limitations with his “Concetti Spaziali”.

Aim of exhibition

The group exhibition Consciences and Frontiers is a part of an exhibition tryptich based on the complex topic of the human being and the world as his/her home. This multi-facetted thematic, which was opened with the exposition This world is not my home, Kunsthaus Tacheles Berlin and ranges through Settled Nomads to Consciences and Frontiers, is not intended to provide answers to our worldly circumstances but grant a forum or stage for reflection and debate about important issues that, due to our daily routine and their omnipresence, have sunken into the mediocracy of normality. The aim of this group exposition is to challenge national and international artists to articulate themselves on issues concerning the yawning gap between our conscience and our frontiers as well as the barriers within and without ourselves.

In this light, the chosen artists are invited to produce new works for the exposition based on the concept of the exposition but also planted on their diverse nationalities, cultures and positions. Of great importance is the representation of the numerous media in art, including painting, photography, installation, performance, street-art and video art. The conception of art as a language and the perception that in the multiplicity or diversity of its forms and nature there will be a higher probability of building a bridge of communication between the artists’ positions in their art and the audience.

The spatiotemporal emphasis of this exhibition trilogy as well as the artists’ rotation is meant to obtain different space- and ideology-specific perspectives for the expositions. While a few artists feature throughout the trilogy, new artists are brought on board to pick-up, re-pose, refresh as well as rephrase questions posed in the previous expositions. Furthermore, the interaction between the works and the audience in different contextual spaces and cities is expected to tickle a new dynamic and communication.